The Controversial Concept of National Competitiveness and the Results of the Visegrad Group in International Rankings of Competitiveness (2007-2012)

The first objective of this paper is to identify the differences between microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts of competitiveness. The second objective is to explain why the concept of national competitiveness is controversial and why the obsession with competitiveness has adverse impacts on the allocation of resources and the choice of economic policies. The third goal is to describe and evaluate the methodology of the best known international rankings of competitiveness (World Competitiveness Yearbook and The Global Competitiveness Report). In the fourth section of this paper we use data published in this rankings to analyse changes in competitiveness of the Visegrad Group economies in 2007 - 2012.