Impact of National Competitiveness on Economic Growth and Income Level – Evidence From the Selected Post-Soviet Countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of national competitiveness on productivity, economic growth and income per capita in the selected post-Soviet countries between 2004 and 2018. In this paper, 2019 edition of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which is composed of 12 pillars such as namely institutions, infrastructure, ICT adoption, macroeconomic stability, health, skills, product market, labour market, financial system, market size, business dynamism and innovation capability, is used as a proxy for the national competitiveness and productivity for the empirical analysis purposes. The findings reveal that: (1) the GCI is highly correlated with productivity level and the selected post-Soviet countries with higher level of national competitiveness had higher long-term economic growth and income per capita, (2) Russia and Kazakhstan more benefited from rising per capita income associated with enhanced national competitiveness (or productivity growth) compared to other selected former Soviet states, (3) among the GCI factors, ICT adoption, macroeconomic stability, market size and healthy life expectancy were major levers of productivity growth that influenced the national competitiveness, positively and significantly contributing to an increase in the income level in the selected post-Soviet countries in 2004-2018 period.