World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Research Articles

The Influence of Trade Facilitation on the Depth and Breadth of China's Agricultural Exports: Empirical Evidence Based on RCEP Countries

This article analyzes how trade facilitation influence China’s agricultural exports to RCEP partners. Based on the data of the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report and principal component analysis, we constructs a 14 index system to measure trade facilitation. Based on the export data from 2011 to 2019, the extended gravity model is used to estimate the relationship between trade facilitation and the depth and breadth of China's agricultural exports. The study shows that improving the trade facilitation of RCEP partners can significantly enhance the depth of China's agricultural exports. Specifically, the trade openness, e-commerce and financial environment of importing countries have a significant positive impact on the depth and breadth of exports. Another important finding is that China's trade facilitation has played a more active role in the depth and breadth of exports. Its infrastructure quality, e-commerce and financial environment can greatly promote China's agricultural exports.

Poland’s Long‑Term Competitive Position from the Perspective of WEF Global Competitiveness Reports

Competitiveness is not clearly defined and there are different methods of measuring it. Analysis of the level of competitiveness on a macro scale is of interest to many entities. Competitiveness rankings are published in the Global Competitiveness Report prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), among others. 137 countries have been included in the WEF’s 2017–2018 Report. A country’s position in this ranking depends on many factors, classified in 12 pillars. In the group of 10 countries with the highest ranking, there are changes in order compared to the previous year, but the composition of this group did not significantly change. In this ranking, Poland was 39th. This is relatively high compared to 2008, in which it ranked 53rd out of 134 countries. In the future, further growth of the competitiveness of the Polish economy may depend on, among other things, the professionalism of managerial staff and on the shift to product competitiveness. It is also necessary to share knowledge between the university and the business sectors and between companies themselves.

ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS

This paper deals with the relation between entrepreneurship education and competitiveness of the national economy. It is based on the assumption that the overall goal of civilization of human society is promotion of a market economy, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. It is believed that the improvement of competitiveness is of the greatest contribution to the realization of these aspirations as it also requires the development of an integrated market and the establishment of the rule of law, and also provides the material basis and provides an incentive for the development of democratic processes in society. We want to show that the promotion of entrepreneurship education is an important link in the process of improving competitiveness, especially in the middle and high-income countries. Here we analyze the data from the most current report of the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 of the world and from 2012 to 2013. Using the method of correlation analysis we confirm the remarkable cohesion and coherence of entrepreneurship education and competitiveness of the ten sample countries with different levels of economic development, but which do not belong to the circle of the poor. It confirms the hypothesis that entrepreneurship education is an important element of competitiveness in middle-income and advanced economies. Thus useful to point out their development and education for the Balkan transition economies. Way of improving competitiveness will undoubtedly lead the transformation of education in entrepreneurial terms.

How Does International Competitiveness Affect Economic Development? A Two-Phase Hypothesis

Summary This paper analyses the impact of international competitiveness on economic development, based on the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and GDP/capita of 125 countries during the period 2007-2010. The results reveal two phases of the evolution of competitiveness. When GCI < 4.5 (on 1-7 scale), any improvement of a country’s competitiveness affects current development more than future development. When a country’s GCI rises above 4.5, further improvements of competitiveness will affect future development more than current development. The 4.5 competitiveness threshold is remarkably stable throughout analyzed period.

Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore. By Jothie Rajah. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 352 pp. $29.99 paper.

Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore. By Jothie Rajah. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 352 pp. $29.99 paper.Despite its status as one of the most dynamic global economies that is buttressed by a sizeable educated middle class, Singapore has remained a one-party-dominant authoritarian state governed by the People's Action Party (PAP) since 1959. The city-state's authoritarian longevity stands in stark contrast to other comparable developmental states in East Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, whose democratic trajectories have conformed to the modernization theory of political development. Not surprisingly, the city-state has become a popular destination for senior state functionaries from authoritarian regimes in China, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe eager to emulate the institutional and ideational components of the Singaporean political and economic model.Instructively, many critical scholarly works that have interrogated the Singapore governance model have been written and published beyond its borders. In this mold, Jothie Rajah's Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore adds to the growing list of penetrating works on Singapore's authoritarian governance written by Singaporean scholars based overseas. In the preface, Rajah frankly acknowledges the intellectual benefit of writing about Singapore from distant shores: I have found it invaluable to exit the ideological fortress that Singapore can sometimes be in order to peel off, layer by layer, some of the assumptions embedded in Singapore speak-assumptions that have, until recently, been invisible to me (xv).The book focuses on the way the Singaporean state has manipulated the rule of while dismantling the constitutional and civil rights of its citizens through rule by processes. Rajah asserts that the law has been pivotal in legitimizing and consolidating the authoritarian state while subverting the dispersal of power that is inherent in plural democracies. In other words, the rule of has served as a crucial prop for the authoritarian state (284). Legislative initiatives have undermined opposition parties (Chapter 3), dismantled the independent press (Chapter 4), and stunted the development of an autonomous civil society (Chapters 5, 6, and 7). These claims, in effect, challenge the veracity of ratings agencies and organizations such as the World Bank Report of Governance, IMD World Competitiveness Report, Transparency International Corruption Perception Index and the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report and expose their uncritical endorsement of the PAP government's rule of claims. These rule of claims are largely restricted to matters pertaining to foreign investment, trade, and the economy, supporting Singapore's reputation as a regional economic hub and commercial center. …

Scalar Equivalence of OPQ32

Scalar equivalence of Big Five scale scores, derived from OPQ32i data, for over one million people are reviewed in terms of differences between 31 countries involving over 20 different languages. Strong relationships are found between country average scale scores and country standard deviations ( SDs), on the one hand, and two of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, on the other. Country SDs are also seen to vary with cultural “tightness” ratings. Country-level performance indicators are also examined (the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index and UN Human Development indices). Strong correlations are found between these indicators and both country-level mean personality scores and SDs of personality scores. While Hofstede’s dimensions also predict variation in global competitiveness ( R = 0.66), adding OPQ32 Big Five personality scale data increases the level of prediction to R = 0.84. It is argued that the strength of these relationships with independent country-level metrics supports the view that between-country differences represent true score variance rather than systematic instrument-related biases.

Competititive intelligence and competitivenes

With the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 4 to 6 June 2008, Africa and South Africa's competitiveness once again fell under the spotlight. The latest WEF Global Competitiveness Report (2008) mentions that African businesses can become more competitive but that African governments, in partnership with global players, should provide the right support in the form of improved access to finance, improved infrastructure and better institutional capacity. In turn, corporates could, in partnership with governments, NGOs and bodies like the UN and World Bank, provide more focused corporate citizenship.