Who's on top?

Lists and rankings fascinate many, from Letterman's top ten to People magazine's best and worst dressed. Even economies have their own such lists. This week the Economist Intelligence Unit published its business environment rankings, with the United States the 9th most attractive place for business out of 82 countries, "the lowest the country has placed since the launch of the business environment rankings in 1997". Angola came last, while Denmark was ranked first, followed by Finland and Singapore. Canada came fourth, followed by Switzerland and Hong Kong.

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2007-08 was also published this week. They rank the United States first for their Global Competitiveness Index, followed by Switzerland and Denmark.

The IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007 also ranked the US first, closely followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. Luxembourg was fourth, followed by Denmark and Switzerland.

Finally, the World Bank's Doing Business 2008 (sic) report ranks Singapore first in its Ease of Doing Business Index - followed by New Zealand and the United States. Hong Kong was fourth, followed by Denmark and the United Kingdom.

One can of course argue with the components and weighting of the various indices, which are by their nature somewhat arbitrary. Nonetheless, despite very different methodologies, the same handful of countries crop up time and time again. The general conclusion, as a previous post on this topic argued, is that three groups typically do well:

* the Nordic economies, particularly the smaller economies of Denmark and Finland;

* the Anglo-saxon economies - the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand;

* the Asian city-states of Singapore and Hong Kong.

So too does Switzerland.

These are clearly very different economic models, showing that in the path to economic prosperity 'one size fits all' just isn't true. Second, most of these countries have relatively 'free' markets and light regulatory regimes. Third, the relative success of the Nordic economies show that low tax rates are not a necessary pre-requisite. Fourth, in Europe smaller countries seem to do better than the larger ones.

Comments

[wookiemagnet]

Ummm.. I don't know if you noticed it but two of the five Anglo-Saxon countries (Australia and New Zealand) that are supposedly so globally competitive are actually ranked BELOW France!:

http://www.gcr.weforum.org/pages/GCI_2007_2008.aspx

[jefff]

"Fourth, in Europe smaller countries seem to do better than the larger ones."

I did a plot of scores against population with European nations and no useful correlation of that type is evident.

Basically Italy and Spain are the worst and the other nations are scattered across 4.75 and 5.75.

Country Score Population
Switzerland 5.6 7.5
Denmark 5.5 5.5
sweden 5.5 9.2
Germany 5.5 82.6
Finland 5.4 5.3
UK 5.4 60.6
Netherlands 5.4 16.4
Austria 5.2 8.3
Norway 5.2 4.7
France 5.1 64.1
Belgium 5.1 10.5
Ireland 5 4.3
Luxembourg 4.8 0.5
Spain 4.6 45.1
Italy 4.3 59.2

[ricardo]

One of the points of Peter Lindert's "Growing Public" is that the Nordic economies can only afford the spending/taxes they do have because their spending/tax systems are more efficient, others things equal; one feature of this greater efficiency being _lower_ corporate taxes.

[Arthur Eckart]

Ricardo, how are the Nordic economies "spending/tax systems" more efficient? You seem to be suggesting Nordic economies are poor models, because they're constrained on spending & taxes. When real value is created, then government spending & taxes can increase. However, when real value is only redistributed, there's no real value created. As a matter of fact, some real value is destroyed. Moreover, the creation of future real value can lead to less constrained spending & taxes in the current period.

[Lafayette]

wm: “two of the five Anglo-Saxon countries … that are supposedly so globally competitive are actually ranked BELOW France!”

I’m not sure this country-by-country comparison is valid.

First of all, the WEF is not totally unbiased. They’ve got their Davos Forum, a real money-spinner, to think about (in the background).

I suggest that it colours the criteria employed to generate their analysis and, frankly, I would not put it past them.

Also, comparing any one European country against the US is a demographic no-no. The two are not comparable. It would be about time that we got to comparing the EU and the US, which are a better demographic comparison.

You know, apples and apples, oranges and oranges?

[Lafayette]

And another thing: Looking at the Competitiveness Scores, one might imagine that the lowest scores seem to go to the most interventionist states. Meaning that competition and statism, seemingly, do not go hand in hand.

This makes de facto sense, for anyone who has lived within such a country or even tried to do business in one.

But, I note at the top, just after the US, that tiny alpine country called Switzerland. Which I cannot qualify as an absolutely open and utterly deregulated country. And certainly not as regards the US. Not by any means.

And, yet, there it is - home of the World Economic Forum (Geneva) and in second place in the chart.

Makes the mind boggle, doesn't it ...