Countries’ investment attractiveness: Meta-analysis

The complexity of investment attractiveness causes a vast range of viewpoints to define it. The paper aims at summarizing the theoretical framework for analysing investment attractiveness. The study applies the instruments of the bibliometric analysis (Scopus Tools Analyse, Web of Science Analyse Results, and software VOSviewer). The data are compiled from Scopus and Web of Science. After filtering and duplicate elimination, 25 567 papers are selected for analysis. The following parameters are applied to select papers: language – English; time – 1991–2020 years; type – article. The authors analyse the theoretical framework according to two criteria: by the level of their closeness and by historical evolution. The findings of co-occurrence analysis allow the identification of nine dimensions of scientific research on investment attractiveness theory. Thus, the first, second, and third clusters are the most closely related to each other. Furthermore, investment attractiveness is mainly analysed within the country’s compositeness and investment climate framework. The historical evolutionary analysis of the publication allows the allocation of five core stages in the development of investment attractiveness theory. The meta-analysis results confirm that the definition of investment attractiveness depends on the investment and the stakeholders’ goals. In addition, further research is required to empirically justify the link between the allocated dimension of investment attractiveness.