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.


Introduction
One of the factors that has a significant impact on the country's economic development is the level of its tax competitiveness. Given the shortage of financial resources, tax competitiveness is a factor that determines the level of the favorable business environment in the country, its attractiveness for business registration and operations in the area. Quite often, the level of the tax burden is seen by governments as an effective tool to improve their position in the competition for more favorable conditions for doing business. At the same time, the level of tax competitiveness of the country is an indicator of the quality of its investment environment and therefore is taken into account by investors when deciding on the feasibility of investing in the country's economy. Thus, a more comprehensive study of this concept, the analysis of its relationship with other economic categories is an important component of increasing the level of economic development of the country.

Literature Review
Tax competitiveness is a complex concept that, depending on the goals of economic entities, can take various forms and be accompanied by a wide range of tools to achieve it. Tiebout (1956) links the concept of tax competitiveness to the tax autonomy of local governments. It is the presence of tax autonomy that allows local governments to compete for the right to register a business on their territory by manipulating the size of tax rates and fees, the introduction of preferential tax regimes. This tax competition has a positive economic effect on local budgets and the economic growth of these countries. Thus, the author understood tax competition as the process of reducing the level of the tax burden on local governments in their territories.
A similar view was held by Bradford and Oates (1971). At the same time, the authors stressed that these manifestations of tax competition, along with economic benefits, have many negative consequences. According to the authors, these actions of public authorities lead to their inability to provide the population with a sufficient level of public goods.
Some scholars have viewed tax competition as a prerequisite for economic growth and profit maximization (Genschel & Schwarz, 2011;Ludema & Wooton, 2000;Tiutiunyk & Kobushko, 2018). Some tax-competitive jurisdictions receive economic benefits by creating opportunities for higher profits, subject to the registration of firms in the area. Ultimately, this leads to a significant increase in the tax burden in these areas and the loss of competitive position in the country (Ludema and Wooton; Baldwin and P. Krugman).

Methodology and research methods
The main hypothesis of this study is the assumption of a steady increase in the relevance of tax competitiveness and analysis of the trend of changes in the number of scientific publications on this issue in journals indexed by scientific databases. The hypothesis put forward in the work will be tested in the following sequence: 1. Trend analysis of the dynamics of change in the number of publications devoted to the study of the concept of "tax competitiveness". The analysis of the frequency of research on the problem of the formation of tax competitiveness showed a significant increase in interest in these issues over the past 20 years. At the same time, a time sample of 1927-2020 from the WoS database and 1970-2020 from the Scopus database was used to test the validity of the hypothesis.

Results
The results of the trend analysis of the number of publications devoted to these issues in the Scopus and Web of Science databases shown in Figure 1 show a gradual increase in the relevance of these issues.
Until 1990, the level of research on these issues was at the same level. Only since 1991 has there been an increase in the number of publications indexed by Scopus (average rate over 12%) and Web of Science databases (over 45%). The most acute aspects of tax competitiveness began to be studied in 2003-2005. One of the reasons for this situation is the global economic crisis, which was accompanied by a significant reduction in tax revenues to budgets and, consequently, the escalation of the search for alternative mechanisms to increase the tax competitiveness of countries. At the next stage, we will conduct a bibliographic analysis of the concept of "tax competitiveness" using VOSViewer v.1.6.10 tools. The generalization of scientific publications in which the results of the study of tax competitiveness were published allowed to determine The top 10 Journals, in which the issue of tax competitiveness was considered most often (Table 1). Most of the articles were published in journals indexed simultaneously by two databases and included in the first quarter. The publication of scientific papers devoted to the study of tax competition in high-ranking journals testifies to the high relevance of these issues and the practical value of the results for the world community. At the same time, the analysis shows the cross-sectoral nature of the study of these issues. In addition to social and economic fields of knowledge, these issues are explored in other subject areas. Thus, according to the Web of Science database, tax competitiveness was most often considered within the following subject areas: 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%).   Analysis of publications by geographical area (Fig. 4) allows us to identify clusters of international research networks on tax competitiveness. The largest number of papers on tax competitiveness were published by scientists from the US, Germany, UK, China, Canada and Japan. In China, Romania and Turkey publications on tax competitiveness appeared only since 2016 (Table 2).   According to the results of the analysis of metadata of publications devoted to the study of tax competitiveness (title of the publication, annotation, keywords of the author) 14672 keywords were identified (frequency of use exceeds 5) and grouped into 5 patterns (Fig. 6). Most often, the concept of tax competitiveness is associated with the concepts of tax, economics, competition, costs, taxation.
The size of the circle reflects the frequency of use of this term along with the concept of "tax competitiveness". Within the red pattern (872 links) tax competitiveness is studied in connection with the following keywords: investments, costs, industry, profitability, environmental economics, industrial competitiveness, decision making, externalities, economic analysis, climate change, tax credits, life cycle, carbon, climate policy (Fig. 7, see in Appendix).
Within the second largest green pattern (559 links) the following keywords are used: economic competition, economic aspect, tax, tax exemption, ownership, social welfare, government (Fig. 10, see in Appendix).
The following keywords are used within the yellow pattern (301 links): industrial economics, regulatory compliance, economic conditions, contracts, strategic planning, tariffs, wages, taxes and legislation, cost effectiveness, mergers and acquisitions, risk assessment ( Figure 8, see in Appendix).
The blue pattern is characterized by the use of the following keywords: fiscal policy, fiscal federalism, optimal taxation, imperfect competition, monopoly, tax burden, income, policy making, regulation, subsidies, tax intensive, tax reform, market conditions ( Figure 9, see in Appendix).
The smallest pattern (150 links) combines publications containing the following keywords: nonhuman, controlled study, tax protein, base sequence, metabolism, unclassified drug (Fig. 10, see in Appendix).
The grouping of scientific publications on tax competitiveness by keywords is the basis for further study of this concept within each of the identified patterns.

Conclusions
The results of the bibliometric analysis proved the significant relevance and popularity of issues related to the study of tax competitiveness. The first single publications on these issues were contacted in early 1981. Every year there is a steady increase in the number of publications on these issues. One of the reasons for this growth was the global economic crisis, which was accompanied by an aggravation of the economic situation, budget deficits, declining budget revenues, and more. The clustering of research networks by geographical area has confirmed the high level of cooperation of scientists from different countries. The vast majority of publications are international in nature. Author