Call for papers: Competitiveness Policies from the Emerging Blocks: a Checkpoint on the Reality of Development through Policy

A special issue of International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies

This special issue will bring together the thoughts and analyses of scholars from a range of disciplines and of differing political convictions to address the question of the current standing of academic research in the field of competitiveness policy, with the aim of taking competitiveness to the global and national level through development. It will formulate theoretical concepts with practical relevance and help in understanding the designing of different strategies to cope with policies among various macro and micro agents of inference. Practitioners from across the globe are welcome to submit their papers.

Productivity as a measure of competitiveness has become the key measure for firms and policymakers in the last decades, after the success of some astute attempts to build competitiveness as the key indicator of sustainable economic growth, while considering its direct impact on wages and standards of living. The prosperity of a nation is determined by its regional competitiveness, which is dependent on the nation’s productivity of goods and services.

The competitiveness of the nation can be assessed through Porter’s Diamond Model, which focuses on four basic pillars, namely factor conditions, demand factors, strategy context and institutional support. The competitiveness of the region is rooted in macroeconomic policies, which are focused on promoting innovation and improving productivity at the micro level. This special issue aims to test models of emerging economies/transition economies, to better understand how policy has been crucial to the deployment of a systemic approach towards competitiveness, beyond financial indicators.

The aim of this issue is to enhance the debate on competitiveness and to enhance the practice of understanding competitiveness of cities, provinces, nations and regions in the emerging block and how policies have a direct impact on enhancing or not enhancing prosperity of the region.

We invite original work from scholars and practitioners on but not limited to the following themes:

• Case studies focused on improving the competitiveness of the firms and nations through the implementation of adequate policy
• Firms' competitiveness strategies, and regulation or de-regulation of markets
• New models to measure competitiveness of regions or firms with special emphasis on long-term sustainable growth, alternatively to GDP
• Policy implications of the state or central governments to improve productivity, prosperity and competitiveness of firms and of the region
• Clusters: formation, initiatives, performance and contribution in regional economic growth and government initiatives for the development of clusters through policy
• Impact of the FDI and fiscal and monetary policy in the role of performance of firms, industrial clusters and nations and how new business models are contributing to the forming of new competitive strategies
• Public and private partnerships, emphasised by special cooperative programmes, fiscal advantages and programmes

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Macroeconomics policies
• Microeconomics
• The determinants of competitiveness at the macroeconomic as well as microeconomic level
• Business strategy and its relationship to competitiveness
• Political economy and policy making
• Economics and strategy and relationship between prosperity and de-growth
• Economic governance, regulation and deregulation of markets

Important Date
Deadline for receipt of manuscripts: 28 February, 2013