Assessing the competitiveness of locations: A journey through the major theoretical insights

The concept of competitiveness has been addressed by economic theorists and policy makers for several hundreds of years, with both groups trying to understand the drivers of economic prosperity and social welfare. This contribution does not aim to address all theoretical thoughts that may contribute to understanding the roots of the competitiveness of locations. The goal is to address the major useful theoretical contributions that permit to identify the main drivers of a territory’s competitiveness and therefore to assess the competitiveness of a specific location according to strong criteria. The first section presents the major contributions found in the classical and neo-classical theories. The second section and the third section concentrate on two majors schools providing significant thoughts on the competitiveness of locations: the Economic Geography (EG) School and the International Business (IB) School.