Global Competitiveness Index

World Economic Forum with Columbia University

The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) attempts to quantify the impact of a number of key factors which contribute to create the conditions for competitiveness, with particular focus on the macroeconomic environment, the quality of the country’s institutions, and the state of the country’s technology and supporting infrastructure.

Private sector companies and participation fees from annual meetings.

The GCI is widely quoted in the media and in academic research.

Administrative data (publicly available data) and World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey

Global 125 countries

For more information on the survey contact: gcp@weforum.org.

The GCI measures “the set of institutions, factors and policies that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity” (in other words, those factors that facilitate or drive productivity). The index is composed of nine pillars:

1. Institutions
2. Infrastructure
3. Macro economy
4. Health and primary education
5. Higher education and training
6. Market efficiency (goods, labour, financial)
7. Technological readiness
8. Business sophistication
9. Innovation

The index attempts to take into account countries' different stages of economic development, and organises the nine pillars into three specific sub-indices:

1. Basic requirements (most important for countries at a factor-driven stage of development).
2. Efficiency enhancers (most important for countries at the efficiency driven stage).
3. Innovation and sophistication factors (most important for countries at the innovation-driven stage).

The rankings are drawn from a combination of publicly available hard data and the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, an annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, together with its network of Partner Institutes (research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the Report. In 2006, 11,000
business leaders were polled in 125 economies worldwide. The survey questionnaire is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting an economy’s
business climate that are critical determinants of sustained economic growth.

Uses a 1-7 scale (higher average score means higher degree of competitiveness).

The GCI is a helpful tool to assess economic competitiveness.

Although the CGI assesses several aspects related to governance such as public trust in institutions, judicial independence and corruption, these are limited measures of governance. There is also a strong business bias regarding governance related aspects, which is reflected by the questions and respondents of the Executive Opinion Survey. Consequently, the GCI should be used very cautiously as a governance index per se. The GCI points out that the ranking is based on relative positioning, thus one country movement on the list is not necessarily due to changes in the country but rather in other countries (i.e. if one country goes up another has to go down).

Weighting used in constructing index is appropriate.