A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE RANKINGS OF RUSSIA AND NORDIC COUNTRIES IN GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS REPORTS IN THE EARLY 21st CENTURY
Competitiveness is an important and at the same time controversial subject of research in economics and economic geography. It allows us to determine the country’s place in the international division of labour and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of different countries. It should be noted that development of the theory of competitiveness involved both foreign (North American, British, Scandinavian) and Russian scientific schools. The article dwells on global competitiveness reports of the World Economic Forum for 2006-2014 and lists key competitiveness factors typical of the developed countries. The interrelation of different ranking indices is shown in the analysis of a country’s ranking. The rankings of Russia and Nordic countries in the early 21st century are compared. Despite the competition from major developed and developing countries, over the past 50 years Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland have achieved a high level of economic development and created social welfare states. National industrial policy, open economy, high level of innovation and public spending on education are important for these countries to maintain competitive edge. In the face of a fierce international competition, science has become the driving force of production. Knowledge economy contributes to the technological progress in various sectors, while innovations determine the direction of a country’s development. This, in its turn, determines the competitiveness of the products and affects the quality of life of the population. Cooperation between Russia and Nordic countries in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region creates prerequisites for the sharing of experience in the sphere of development, improvement of competitiveness of the Russian economy and wellbeing of its population. For this exchange to be productive we have to analyse the prerequisites for and consider the peculiarities of the countries’ current development.