Competitive Ranking Research Articles

Tourism competitiveness measurement. A perspective from Central America and Caribbean destinations

Purpose This study aims to present diverse proposals for the measurement of tourism destination competitiveness that serve as alternatives to the travel and tourism competitiveness index (TTCI). Design/methodology/approach The proposal includes principal component analysis, the DP2-distance method, goal programming, data envelopment analysis and the Borda count. The study evaluates 17 destinations from Central America and the Caribbean. Findings These include the feasibility that the methodologies provide reliable competitiveness rankings and the possibility of using less information due to the strength of the statistical methodologies. International tourist arrivals, income from international tourism and travel and tourism contribution to the gross domestic product could be used as approximations of tourism destination competitiveness. Research limitations/implications The main limitation is the absence of major destinations from the region that constitutes fierce competitors. Practical implications New aggregation methods can build composite indicators for competitiveness measurement and their presentation in a more comprehensible way. Social implications The results serve as an alternative for countries that have yet to be considered in international tourism competitiveness comparisons. Originality/value A better explanatory power of the proposed index is given, thanks to their decomposition capacity and the reduction of the limitations of the original TTCI. Moreover, the proposals facilitate the inclusion of external information or the execution of a completely objective methodology.

The Competitiveness of Qatari Tourism: A Comparative and SWOT Analysis

Purpose- Qatar has placed its tourism sector as one of the main strategies of economic diversification to achieve sustainable tourism goal. The country aims to develop diverse tourism products, ranging from cultural, urban, and nature tourism to education. The government has invested a huge amount in designing and building tourism infrastructures such as the eight new stadiums to host the 2022 World Cup, the national museum, Museum of Islamic Art, Katara Cultural Village, Souq Waqif, and many resorts and high end hotels. Given these significant tourism investments, it is unquestionable that the country reaps commensurate long-term benefits in terms of growth of its tourism sector and possible ripple effects in other sectors of the economy. Hence, this study reconnoitres the viability of positioning Qatar’s tourism sector as being pivotal to its economic-diversification strategy by comparing its tourism competitiveness with its strong competitors, namely the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Methodology- To examine this, the study employs secondary data, questionnaire surveys as well as SWOT analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Qatar relative to the competing destinations. Findings- The findings reveal that Qatar is not price competitive with the nearby countries. Furthermore, the competing nations, in general, have longer and deeper expertise in tourism, and invested more resources than Qatar in developing their tourism sectors. However, Qatar performed the best for its health and financial systems, compared to its competitors, based on scheme of the Global Competitiveness Rankings. In order to increase its tourism, the country should focus more on developing the highest quality of health tourism products and targeting on wealthy tourists who can afford to buy a property and live in Qatar as second-home residents. Originality/value- This paper investigates the tourism competitiveness of Qatar in comparison of its neighbouring destinations with respect to the goals set up by the Qatari government. Based upon the analysis, it can be concluded that Qatar has loss its price competitiveness to its neighbouring countries. Furthermore, the study provides a comprehensive examination of Qatar and its competitors using all indices provided by the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness reports, and conduct strengths and weaknesses analysis based on these indicators.

Dismantling new and old forms of colonialism: border thinking in Latin American universities

ABSTRACT Latin American universities have been subject to old and new forms of colonialism that act concurrently. Old forms of colonialism are based on a matrix of race and labour divisions that universities have inherited, reproduced, and reinforced. New forms of colonialism are attaching to global forces that promote a world class university model based on prestige, competition and international rankings. By means of both a bibliometric and a thematic analysis, this paper examines scholarly work on colonialism and internationalisation in Latin American universities and suggests that Latin American universities have developed both local and global-oriented mechanisms so as to deal with old and new forms of colonialism. Both mechanisms take place within universities although one is oriented to local actions, while the second has a more reflective nature. It is argued that both mechanisms are part of what has been called ‘border thinking’, that is collective and contesting narratives and actions that aim to dissolve colonial forces in the periphery. Although Latin American universities have been proactive in developing concrete initiatives to cope with older local forms of colonialism, a further task remains of promoting and instituting initiatives that confront the newer and global forms of academic colonialism.

The effect of hard infrastructure on perceived destination competitiveness: The moderating impact of mobile technology

Hard infrastructure is an important topic to research because of its importance to perceived destination competitiveness. Besides, tourism suppliers who adopt mobile technology can improve visitors' trip experiences. Moreover, Malaysia, is experiencing declined destination competitiveness ranking and poor hard infrastructure development in Sarawak. The primary goal of this research is to examine the hard infrastructures as determinants of perceived destination competitiveness and the moderating effect of mobile technology from the visitor's perspective. A total of 190 valid data were collected for further analysis. The data were analyzed using PLS-SEM approach. The result revealed that transportation and accommodation have a significant relationship with perceived destination competitiveness. Additionally, the relationship between telecommunication infrastructure and perceived destination competitiveness is moderated by mobile technology. The current study's findings aided scholars and practitioners by providing useful data backed up by empirical evidence on the moderating effect of mobile technology and the direct relationship between infrastructure and perceived destination competitiveness.

Economic competitiveness vs. green competitiveness of agriculture in the European Union countries

Research background: Many scientists have researched the economic competitiveness of agriculture. At the same time, considerably less attention is paid to the so-called green competitiveness. Considering a global trend searching for solutions to reduce the environmental impact of the agricultural sector, it seems reasonable to explore the overlap between economic competitiveness and green competitiveness. Purpose of the article: This study aims to answer the following questions: What is the level of economic and green competitiveness of agriculture in respective countries? What is the level of the comprehensive competitiveness of agriculture in EU member states? Do the economic competitiveness outcomes of respective countries coincide with their green competitiveness rankings? Methods: Taxonomic methods were applied to design synthetic indices of economic, green and comprehensive competitiveness of 27 member states of the European Union, based on multi-criteria sets of specific indicators from 2018. Findings & value added: The results of analyses imply that, in general, the level of green competitiveness of agriculture is higher than the level of its economic competitiveness in EU member states. Simultaneously, the developed rankings show that respective countries' economic and green competitiveness are not linked. In other words, economic competitiveness outcomes do not match green competitiveness outcomes for EU agriculture. This work is a genuine contribution to studies on the methods for measuring and evaluating the competitiveness of agriculture as it designs separate synthetic measures for economic and green competitiveness and confronts both types of competitiveness in EU member states. The research findings for the first time provide clear answers to questions about the mutual relationship between economic and green competitiveness in agriculture. Furthermore, an added value of this study is that it introduces and attempts to define the notion of green competitiveness.

Competitiveness of the European Union Member States according to the Institute of Management Development index (IMD)

The competitiveness index of the Swiss Institute for Management Development (IMD International for Management Development), based in Lausanne, is calculated and published in the World Competitiveness Yearbook - the leading annual report published annually since 1989. Until 1995, the report was developed jointly by the IMD and the Index of Economic Freedom (IEF). IMD publishes the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, which measures the ability of 64 economies to adapt to digital technologies and the readiness to search for new applications of digital technologies as a key factor of economic transformation in industry, the public sector and broadly understood social relations. The IMD index provides a general overview of the factors that determine the level of competitiveness. Currently, these factors are analyzed in four categories defining the competitiveness of the economy, i.e.: economic situation, government efficiency, efficiency of the public and economic sector, infrastructure.
 To assess the competitiveness of EU Member States, taking into account the IMD index, rankings for 2010 and 2020 published by the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking were used. Research results indicate that the countries that achieved the best results in the IMD ranking are also leaders in the competitiveness ranking based on GDP per capita published by the European Commission.

Research Trends in Immune Checkpoint Blockade for Melanoma: Visualization and Bibliometric Analysis.

BackgroundMelanoma is one of the most life-threatening skin cancers; immune checkpoint blockade is widely used in the treatment of melanoma because of its remarkable efficacy.ObjectiveThis study aimed to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of research conducted in recent decades on immune checkpoint blockade for melanoma, while exploring research trends and public interest in this topic.MethodsWe summarized the articles in the Web of Science Core Collection on immune checkpoint blockade for melanoma in each year from 1999 to 2020. The R package bibliometrix was used for data extraction and visualization of the distribution of publication year and the top 10 core authors. Keyword citation burst analysis and cocitation networks were calculated with CiteSpace. A Gunn online world map was used to evaluate distribution by country and region. Ranking was performed using the Standard Competition Ranking method. Coauthorship analysis and co-occurrence were analyzed and visualized with VOSviewer.ResultsAfter removing duplicates, a total of 9169 publications were included. The distribution of publications by year showed that the number of publications rose sharply from 2015 onwards and either reached a peak in 2020 or has yet to reach a peak. The geographical distribution indicated that there was a large gap between the number of publications in the United States and other countries. The coauthorship analysis showed that the 149 top institutions were grouped into 8 clusters, each covering approximately a single country, suggesting that international cooperation among institutions should be strengthened. The core author extraction revealed changes in the most prolific authors. The keyword analysis revealed clustering and top citation bursts. The cocitation analysis of references from 2010 to 2020 revealed the number of citations and the centrality of the top articles.ConclusionsThis study revealed trends in research and public interest in immune checkpoint blockade for melanoma. Our findings suggest that the field is growing rapidly, has several core authors, and that the United States is taking the lead position. Moreover, cooperation between countries should be strengthened, and future research hot spots might focus on deeper exploration of drug mechanisms, prediction of treatment efficacy, prediction of adverse events, and new modes of administration, such as combination therapy, which may pave the way for further research.

TWIICE One powered exoskeleton: effect of design improvements on usability in daily life as measured by the performance in the CYBATHLON race

BackgroundSpinal cord injury leading to paraplegia affects the mobility and physiological well-being of one in a thousand people. Powered exoskeletons can temporarily restore the ability to walk. Their relevance in daily life is still limited because of low performance beyond ground that is even. CYBATHLON is an international competition promoting improvements in assistive technology. In this article, we present the latest design and results of testing of TWIICE One version 2018, one of the competing devices in the 2020 race.MethodsA person with a motor-complete spinal cord injury at thoracic level T10 participated as race pilot. Training ahead of the race took place over one week at a rate of 2 h per day. The time to perform each of the seven tasks of the competition was recorded together with the number of repetitions. Performance is compared over the training period and against the 2016 race results.ResultsProgression was observed in all tasks and accounted for by both user training and technology improvements. Final competition rank was second out of seven participating teams, with a record time of 4′40". This represents an average improvement of 40% with respect to comparable obstacles of the 2016 race, explaining the two ranks of improvement since then.ConclusionThese results help understand which features had a positive impact on the real-life performance of the device. Understanding how design affects performance is key information to create devices that really improve the life of people living with paraplegia.

Development Status and Influencing Factors of Competitive Basketball Management System under the Background of Deep Learning.

Competitive basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world. With the development of China's sports power strategy, the national movement has strengthened the status of basketball in sports. However, China's competitive basketball ranking is not high in the world, and the analysis of the reasons should start with the management system. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the development status and influencing factors of China's competitive basketball management system under the background of deep learning. For the background of deep learning, this paper describes the application of deep learning algorithms in basketball strategy. It adopts the expert interview method for the competitive basketball management system and elaborates in detail on five aspects: target mechanism, competition mechanism, selection mechanism, market mechanism, and incentive mechanism. The experimental results of the article believe that, based on the suggestions of 10 experts, the current Chinese competitive basketball selection mechanism is the most influential factor, with a weight of 16.1%, and the smallest impact is the level of athletes, accounting for 11.4%.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS’ REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: AN EXPLORATION THROUGH GREY RELATIONAL ANALYSIS

This study aims to explore the comparison of the regional competitiveness of the nations targeted by Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy and the key indicators that influence regional competitiveness. Through comparative analysis between each other, we will further select countries and regions that are most suitable for investment and exchange. Regional competitiveness describes the ability of various economies to compete for resources or markets in a region. Exploring regional competitiveness allows the best nations for investment to be identified so that unnecessary costs and losses may be avoided. This paper proposes a multiple attribute decision making method, grey relational analysis (GRA), for solving this kind of problem. This study investigates the regional competitiveness of various nations using competitiveness rankings obtained through the ranking of grey relational ordinals. The study seeks to identify critical factors underlying regional competitiveness. The study variables are grouped into four major factors: economy, human resources, technology, and trade capability. The results reveal that India, Singapore, and Australia are nations with regional competitive advantages. Labor force and technology are indispensable factors for enhancing regional competitiveness. ASEAN countries have greater regional competitiveness than South Asia or Australia and New Zealand.

Competitive Ranking of Six Major Tea-related Research Organizations through Bibliometric Analysis of Publications and Patents

ABSTRACT Technological advances in tea production are critical to meet global demands for tea consumption. To illuminate differences in the scientific and commercial relevance of research programs between major tea-related research organizations around the world, we conducted a bibliometric analysis comparing the scientific outputs, including peer-reviewed publications and patents, of six major research organizations published between January 01, 2008 and July 11, 2020. For this competitive ranking analysis, we examined a number of papers, research topics, academic influence, capacity for development, capacity for collaboration, and capacity for technological innovation. Among the six research organizations, Anhui Agricultural University (in China) had the most publications, while the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute showed a higher capacity for development. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (in India) and the University of Shizuoka (Japan) both showed high academic influence, while the University of Shizuoka, Tea Research Association Tocklai and National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (Japan) showed a high capacity for collaboration. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute applied for the most patents, while the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research applied for the most international patents.

The indicator-based measurement of the circular economy in the countries of the European Union

The circular economy is an integral part of sustainable development as a new economic model, which is the opposite of the linear economy that is still in force today. In terms of its basics, we can speak of a sustainable economic system in which economic growth is completely decoupled from the use of resources, in order to reduce the use of natural resources and recycle them. In the study, the authors present the possibility of measuring the circular economy and establish a ranking for the 28 Member States of the European Union based on the created composite indicators measuring the circular economy. The values of the created CCEI index were compared with rankings produced by other researchers in similar and different ways. The goodness of the presented methodology is examined by comparing previous similar research results.
 The primary objective of the study is to create composite indicators and to analyse their comparability. Further aim is to characterise the leading and the tail-ender countries from which conclusions can be drawn regarding ranking and thus make them comparable. The research objective is achieved by using secondary data based on different Eurostat databases related to a sub-sector of the circular economy for the year 2018. The indicators of the circular economy were grouped according to four areas: production and consumption, waste management secondary raw materials, competitiveness and innovation. These areas are adequately show the topics related to the circular economy.
 In terms of its structure, the international literature related to the circular economy is reviewed first, followed by the EU strategy and a set of relevant indicators. In the methodological chapter, the methodology of the analysis, the scale coordinate transformation is explained. The research results are compared with the rankings created by other authors and the authors of this study. In this study, the comparison is made from composite indicators using rank correlation, followed by the conclusions.
 The research findings of the study highlighted the fact that composite indicators can be created in relation to the circular economy, however, creating and comparing them is not an easy task. The ranking on which the comparison is based shows a very high degree of similarity with the selected rankings. Overall and typically, the leading States, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Italy are almost without exception in the top of the rankings in most cases, while the group of tail-enders is led by Malta and Estonia. Based on the results of the macro-level studies, the authors established a kind of competitiveness ranking.

Are competitiveness rankings and institutional measures helping emerging economies to improve?

PurposeBased on the rankings of the global competitiveness index and the fragile states index, this paper aims to suggest alternative approaches to shed some light on the effectiveness of rankings in helping emerging economies improve their competitiveness from an institutional standpoint.Design/methodology/approachThe statistical analysis consisted of a two-stage analysis; the first stage consisted of constructing an updated Alternative Institutional Quality Index (AIQI), intending to design a comparative measure between dimensions over time. The second stage consisted of evidencing the structure of each of the observed dimensions' variance to evidence the existing changes or gaps of the AIQI and its components. The authors incorporated the Kruskas–Wallis (KW) model to test the results.FindingsThis paper demonstrates that the analyzed countries generally maintain their competitive position, even though changes in their scores are reflected. This makes invisible the development and progress factors generated by the countries that are mainly found with low scores and only reflect stable structures that allow them to maintain their position.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study has a limitation because it concentrated on a few selected indicators based on the literature review. The limitations of this research may be overlooked in the future by adding additional variables and observations. The paper could be improved by including intra- and inter-regional approaches to control based on the occurrence of specific circumstances (i.e. informal institutions, economic development or factor endowments).Practical implicationsThe paper contributes to the applicable measurement of competitiveness and its structural change over time.Originality/valueThis paper proposed an alternative and simple methodology to assess the evolution of the competitiveness indicators; this methodology could be used to measure structural changes at different levels, which may be an input for the design and implementation of policies to foster competitiveness.

VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL HVAC DEPARTMENT PERCEPTION OF SME’S OPERATING IN AGEAN REGION FROM COMPETITON AND INSTITUIONAL POINT OF VIEW

Globalisation changed the entire world to a small village. At that transition business especially SME’s have to overcome all threats coming from all over the world to be able to continue their operations and to save their entities. To achieve higher competition ranking they must cooperate with Universities. With the collaboration of Universities, business can create their own brands and develop Institutional Identities. By collaboration of University and Industry, business can recruit well educated person which they need. Also universities educate well equipped people for Industries. Institutional Identity is one of the most important factors to create brand. Form that point of view, by searching branding and Institutional identity generating process of SME’s operating in agean region and in HVAC sector, their perception of IMYO Refrigeration and ventilation program’s students. Also their perception about IMYO’s Institutional Identity will be tried to find out. For this purpose a survey will be conducted to SME’s asking questions prepared according to Likert Technique. Then returned surveys will be compiled by using SPSS program on PC. Then proposals will be developed according to conclusions found out by SPSS. Keywords: Branding, competition, Institutional Identity, Perception

Faculty appointment and promotion in Taiwan’s medical schools, a systematic analysis

BackgroundA rigorous faculty appointment and promotion (FAP) system is vital for the success of any academic institution. However, studies examining the FAP system in Asian universities are lacking. We surveyed the FAP policies of Taiwan’s medical schools and identified an overreliance on the CJA score (manuscript Category, Journal quality, and Author order). The potential shortcomings of this metric and recommendations for refinement were discussed.MethodsWe obtained the FAP documents from all 12 medical schools in Taiwan, and analyzed their use of traditional versus non-traditional criteria for FAP according to a published methodology. The influence of the journal impact factor (JIF) on the FAP process was quantified by comparing its relative weight between papers with two extreme JIFs. To better understand the research impact and international standing of each school, we utilized the public bibliographic database to rank universities by the number of papers, and the proportions of papers within the top 10% or 50% citation.ResultsCompared with other countries, Taiwan’s medical schools focus more on the quantifiable quality of the research, mostly using a “CJA” score that integrates the category, JIF or ranking, and authorship of a paper, with the JIF being the most influential factor. The CJA score for an article with a JIF of 20 can be up to three times the threshold for promotion to Assistant Professor. The emphasis on JIF is based on a presumed correlation between JIF and citation counts. However, our analysis shows that Taiwan’s medical schools have lower-than-average citation counts despite a competitive rank in the number of publications.ConclusionsThe JIF plays an unrivaled role in determining the outcome of FAP in Taiwan’s medical schools, mostly via the CJA system. The questionable effectiveness of the current system in elevating the international standing of Taiwan’s higher-education institutions calls for a re-examination of the FAP system. We recommend a reduction in the relative importance of CJA score in the FAP system, adopting more rigorous metrics such as the h-index for evaluating research quality, and supporting more research aimed at improving the FAP system.

State financial regulation of the competitive environment: assessment for the agricultural sector of Ukraine

The article reveals the importance of state financial regulation as one of the most important tools for economic growth and ensuring the competitiveness of industries and the economy of Ukraine. The studies of domestic and foreign scientists on the subject of research are analyzed in detail. The state of enterprises of the agricultural sector of Ukraine for the period 2013-2020 has been determined. The study was carried out on the factors of providing agricultural producers with financial resources in terms of the size of the forms of management. The share of unprofitable enterprises in the industry for the same period is also analyzed. The achievements of the agricultural sector are described according to the statistical analysis of the state of socio-economic development of the regions in the period 2020-2021. The methodology for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the implementation of the state regional policy in accordance with legislative regulations is described. This made it possible to establish that at the present stage, the financial regulation of the agricultural sector of Ukraine is carried out without proper scientific justification and, as a rule, responds slowly to the requirements of economic practice, especially in the context of deepening the penetration of global processes into the national economy. Approaches to the assessment of the competitive environment of the agrarian sector of Ukraine and the direction of its state regulation are proposed. Theoretical, methodological, and practical aspects of assessing the competitiveness of the sector are disclosed. The necessity and possibility of forming a competitive environment by fiscal policy measures, primarily budgetary regulation, is proved. The problems of forming a competitive environment in the context of the current crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the place of Ukraine in the world competitiveness ranking are identified, and methodological approaches to the development strategy are proposed. It is proved that the competitive strategy is based on the existing resources of the industry (material, financial and intellectual), the level of development of various forms of management, the structure of production, marketing, processing, the formation of value chains and a bilateral state-market regulator. The directions for improving the quality of the competitive environment, arising from the paradigm of innovative development of the agricultural sector, are summarized and provide for the stimulation of small business in niche and organic production and large-scale industrial production in terms of the main indicators of food security, as well as the development of land, financial, credit and resource markets and the formation of equal access to them all agricultural producers.

A Literature Review of Efficiency Issues in Tourism

The article analyzes and demonstrates relevant quantitative information on scientific research devoted to the issues of efficiency in the field of tourism in the context of publication periods, journals, authors, citation scores, keyword indexes, methods, and target countries. As a result, the main trends of publication activity were revealed, the leading scientific journals, scientists, countries, the most attractive types of tourism, studied categories of efficiency, developed areas of research, existing methods and features of their use in the study of efficiency issues in the field of tourism were identified. The analysis of variance was used to investigate the relationship between the publication activity of countries in the study of tourism efficiency and the place in the World Economic Forum's travel and tourism competitiveness ranking. It is statistically proved that the publication activity of countries in the study of tourism efficiency is related to their position in the World Economic Forum's travel and tourism competitiveness ranking. “Scopus" scientometric database was used as the information base of the study. At the same time, the authors sorted, calculated and interpreted the data on the studies devoted to the study of tourism efficiency on their own on the basis of a large array of data.

СТАРТАП ЯК ІНДИКАТОР КОНКУРЕНТОСПРОМОЖНОСТІ СФЕРИ ТУРИЗМУ ТА ГОСТИННОСТІ

The paper overviews Ukraine's place in the world rankings during 2019-2021, in particular, such as Global Startup Ecosystem Index, Global Innovation Index, Global Competitiveness Index, World Competitiveness Ranking and Doing Business. The competitiveness analysis demonstrates an improvement of Ukraine’s position in the global rankings during this period, in particular, in terms of innovation activity as well as in the Technology and Knowledge blocks. Quite often, information products emerge as start-ups which then continue to gain popularity and become the unchanging totalizer of the service sector. In the tourism and hospitality business this is evidenced by the large number of start-ups that have been growing in recent years. Businesses are trying to be the first to find such products in order to improve their own competitiveness further enabling them to distinguish significantly from the competitors and, more importantly, to become market leaders with a large number of competitive advantages. The European Union promotes the best travel start-ups in the global level, the Ukrainian Startup Fund deals with startups at the state level. The number of startups in Ukraine has increased significantly over the last 3 years, which, in turn, has ensured an increase in the ranking position by 5 points. Analysis of the results shows positive trends in both the number of key investments and rankings in Ukraine. As to the Ukrainian regional distribution, the leader in the number of startups during last years was Kyiv. Despite the significant number of startups and their funding, which is growing every year, there are a few problems, such as Ukrainian startups are not in great demand, lack of favorable conditions and appropriate organizations, investment attractiveness is very low for platforms in this field, promotion of both the country and regions as tourist destinations is insufficient as well as government support for both the service sector and IT service providers.

Economic Competitiveness and Quality of Human Resources in West Sumatra


 
 
 Economic development is essentially an effort to improve people’s welfare through increasing and promoting equitable distribution of people’s income. The logical consequence of regional development in the current era of globalization is an increasingly sharp level of direct competition in the marketing of goods and services, both in the domestic market and the international market, for all regions in the national territory. The purpose of this study was, first, to analyze the characteristics and level of competitiveness of the regional economy and human resources in districts and cities in West Sumatra. Secondly, we aimed to investigate the relationships between regional economic performance, human resources and typology between regions in West Sumatra. This research used descriptive qualitative and quantitative methods and analyses. To determine the pattern and structure of regional economic growth, the Klassen typology was used. Then to examine the overall ranking of regional economic competitiveness, the average and standard deviation of the main indicator were calculated. The results indicated that the highest economic performance and quality of human resources were in the city of Padang, followed by Bukittinggi, Padang Panjang, Payakumbuh, and Solok. The lowest competitiveness was dominated by regencies such as Solok Selayan, Pesisir Selatan, and the Mentawai Islands. This was also supported by the findings of Klassen’s typology.
 Keywords: competitiveness, region, Klassen typology, performance
 
 

Does Perceived Corruption Converge? International Evidence

Abstract This article analyses the evolution over time of perceived corruption for a large set of countries worldwide. To proxy corruption, we use the recently proposed Bayesian Corruption Index (Standaert, S. (2015). Divining the level of corruption: A bayesian state space approach, Journal of Comparative Economics, 43(3), 782–803). We employ the test developed by (Phillips, P., & Sul, D. (2007). Transition modeling and econometric convergence tests. Econometrica, 75, 1771–1855) that enables the endogenous determination of convergence clubs for countries over time. Having divided countries into convergence clubs, we explore whether each club differs from the others in terms of their competitiveness ranking. In particular, drawing on the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, we focus not only on the global competitiveness score, but also on the first and the fifth pillars of competitiveness: institutions and health, respectively. Mean and median scores for clubs confirm the general rule that low perceived corruption levels tend to be associated with high-income countries with established democracies, high-quality healthcare systems, and relatively low-income inequality. However, countries such as Spain and Italy, which are innovation-driven economies with excellent scores in the health pillar, are in the worst club for perceived corruption, suggesting there are additional idiosyncratic aspects that could drive perceived corruption levels.