The International Tax Competitiveness: Bibliometric Analysis

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the generalization of the main vectors of the tax competitiveness theory’s development. The main purpose of the article is to analyze and systematize the research of scientists on the formation of tax competitiveness of the country, to identify the relationship of tax competitiveness with other economic categories, to determine the most promising areas of research on this issue. The results of trend analysis of scientific publications on tax competitiveness, indexed by Scopus and Web of Science scientometric databases, show a gradual increase in the relevance of these issues. The average growth rate of the number of publications on tax competitiveness in the Scopus database exceeds 12%, and in the Web of Science database – 45%. The methodological tools of the bibliometric analysis are VOSViewer v.1.6.10 and Scopus and Web of Science database analysis tools. The object of analysis is 4,598 publications indexed in the Web of Science database and 4,898 publications indexed in the Scopus database. The issues of international tax competitiveness became most relevant in 2003-2005, which coincided with the period of aggravation of the global economic crisis, which was accompanied by a significant reduction in tax revenues to budgets. The article identifies the top 10 Journals, most of which are indexed simultaneously by two databases and are part of the first quarter, in which the issue of tax competitiveness was considered most often. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves the intersectoral nature of the study of the problem of the country’s tax competitiveness. According to the Web of Science database, issues of tax competitiveness were most often considered within the subject areas of Economics (39% of publications); Business Finance (6%); Environmental Studies (6%); Political Science (5%); Law (4%); Urban Studies (3%); Business (3%); Management (3%); Environmental Sciences (2%); Public Administration (2%); Regional Urban Planning (2%); International Relations (2%); Operations Research Management Science 2%) and others (21%), while according to the Scopus database – Economics, Econometrics and Finance (published 28% of all papers); Social Sciences (21%); Business, Management and Accounting (13%); Engineering (7%); Environmental Science (7%); Medicine (5%); Energy (4%); Computer Science (2%); Arts and Humanities (2%); Decision Sciences (2%); Earth and Planetary Sciences (1%); Materials Science (1%); Agricultural and Biological Sciences (1%); Others (6%). The paper clusters international research networks on tax competitiveness by geographical area and identifies 5 clusters of cooperation of scientists in the preparation of publications indexed in the Web of Science database and 4 clusters – in the preparation of publications indexed in the Scopus database. According to the results of the analysis of metadata of publications devoted to the tax competitiveness, 14672 keywords, the frequency of use of which exceeds 5, were identified and grouped into 5 patterns. Most often, the concept of tax competitiveness is associated with the concepts of tax, economics, competition, costs, taxation.