Impact of international country rankings on economic development of European countries in transition

The main objective of this paper is to apply a simple linear regression analysis to answer the question of whether international country ranking can be reasonably considered as a new autonomous factor of the development of European transitional economies. Do they represent a recipe for faster economic progress? The statistical analysis, which coveres the period from 2009 to 2017, acknowledges the existence of a time lag between the research variables. "Ease of Doing Business Index", "Global Competitiveness Index", "Index of Economic Freedom" and "Human Development Index" were selected as explanatory variable, while foreign direct investment and gross domestic product were used as the indicators of dependent variable. Based on the results, it was concluded that, in the defined spatial and temporal context, the international country ranking lists of this type cannot be accepted as a reliable instrument for investment decisions or be confidently used as a basis for creating development policies and strategies for attracting foreign direct investment. This statement about the unreliability and questionable practical applicability of these measures from the point of view of investors and decision makers in the country, as their primary users, suggests that they can reasonably be related to the implication of Goodhart's law.