Evaluating the Competitiveness of the World’s Economies: Theory and Practice

The article is concerned with studying the theory and practice of evaluating the competitiveness of the world’s economies. The development stages of the methodology for evaluating the competitiveness of countries together with characteristics of the approaches used in their terms were explored. The methodology by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the one, used by the Institute for Management Development (IMD), were proven to be the most substantiated and applied in world practice. The characteristics of these methodologies, the constituents, indicators, and calculation procedures were considered. The world competitiveness rankings by IMD and by WEF in the period of 2016-2017 were analyzed. The place of Ukraine in these ratings has been determined. Based on the findings, it is concluded that the country’s competitiveness is considerably low and that a conception of its increase needs to be substantiated