The paper aims to improve the methodology of the Digital Economic and Society Index (DESI), the European Commission’s newest index to assess the development of the digital economy. In particular, we investigate whether methodological changes to the structure of DESI improve its ability to capture the digital transformation of EU economies. Using the sensitivitybased analysis, we check whether the selection of weights of individual elements included in the DESI is optimal or should be improved. We also verify the importance of DESI in explaining changes in GDP per capita in EU economies. In the literature, we find that digital transformation has enabled the creation of new business models and maximized efficiency in traditional firms. Using DESI, we empirically test whether the gap between rich and poor countries in European Union can be closed or eliminated through rapid and intensive digital transformation. Our results show that the DESI – when modified by eliminating the pillars on internet services and digital public services – has the same explanatory power. Connectivity is the dimension with the largest impact on digital transformation in EU countries. We also find that DESI is a significant regressor to explain changes in GDP per capita in EU countries.

This paper aims to identify patterns of functional specialisation (FS) in global value chains (GVCs) and determinants of upgrading them for selected Central Eastern European (CEE) economies. By combing the World Input-Output Database with data on occupations, we reveal a new FS pattern among subgroups of CEEs. Poland and Slovakia have an unfavourable GVC position and specialise in low value-added fabrication function. In contrast, other CEEs have competitive advantages in high value-added tasks: the Baltic countries and Slovenia in management services, the Czech Republic and Slovenia in R&D. We identify upgrading factors for different types of FS in GVCs. The wages convergence of CEEs with developed economies, and strong GVC backward linkages support the path to higher value-added in almost all business functions. Higher GDP per capita and lower economic distance to Germany allow CEEs to escape from ‘factory economies' status and also generate higher value-added in R&D activities.

This article assesses the impact of selected determinants on both value-added exports and gross exports for seven CEE economies, based on thirteen manufacturing subsectors for the years 1995–2011. The results show a decrease in domestic value-added, especially in high-tech industries. The impact of the determinants, except for vertical specialization, is similar for exports in value-added and in gross terms. The results indicate that labor productivity and highly skilled employees have a greater impact on generating domestic value-added. CEE countries do not achieve comparative advantages of a capital-intensive nature. Manufacturing does not serve a “carrier function” for services.

Over the last three decades there has been growing interest in international competitiveness research. However, as evidenced by the academic literature, there is a lack of systematic chronological studies synthesizing how this field has evolved over time. The main aim of this paper is to consolidate the state of the art of academic research on international competitiveness in the discipline of economics by using a new method: a bibliometric study of the economics literature published over the past 70 years. Citation data is collected from Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar, and it is analysed using HistCite, Pajek and VOSviewer software. Using bibliometric indicators, network citation analysis, key-routes main path methodology and term co-occurrence analysis, it investigates the growth pattern of the international competitiveness literature, identifies the core journals and authors, the main paths of knowledge diffusion and the key research domains in the international competitiveness literature. The results of the analysis show that studies on international competitiveness have been and still are important and popular in economics. International competitiveness concepts come from models of competition and are not strongly connected with classical theories of international trade. Publications by Krugman, Fagerber and Balassa have made the greatest contributions to the development of international competitiveness studies, but only Krugman’s works have been significant in terms of knowledge diffusion. International competitiveness mostly refers to international trade/export performance and to the impacts of cost, price, exchange rates, income and FDI. However, in the last decade the relationships between trade flows and technology, liberalization processes, environmental regulations, location, education/human capital and productivity have become key topics in international competitiveness studies.

The energy transition is now treated in most countries as a necessary condition for their long-term development. The process of energy transformation assumes the simultaneous implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a major challenge for modern economies and introduce significant restrictions in their functioning. Our study aims to group EU member states according to their ability to achieve energy transition over time. The novelty of our approach is the assessment of energy transformation in the European Union through two aspects. The first one, “smart and efficient energy systems”, assess the current, widely understood energy consumption in economy, and the second one, “macroeconomic heterogeneity”, refers to the economic potential of a country. In our analysis, we included indicators from the 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Sustainable Development Goals. Using taxonomic methods, we created clusters of countries according to the emissivity of their economies and the socio-economic potential for the energy transition. The analysis results revealed that countries vary more due to their emissivity than economic potential.