Abstract
Countries are ranked on many criteria, the results of which can have far-reaching ethical and practical implications, particularly for emerging nations seeking role models. One highly influential ranking, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (GCR), has been criticized for containing multiple methodological, conceptual, and logical flaws that bias competitiveness rankings toward countries that favor neoliberalism. Using datasets not afflicted by such flaws, we examine Bergsteiner and Avery’s (J Bus Ethics 109(4):391–410, 2012) prediction that competitiveness scores of the USA and the UK are substantially overstated. Results of re-ranking 104 countries using 29 economic, environmental, and social datasets from reputable sources support this assertion, with the USA showing the greatest discrepancy on a 100-point scale between its 2013–2014 GCR score (5) and our study’s 2013 score (57), and the UK falling from GCR score 9 to 40. We explore reasons for this discrepancy, including examining the relationship between a country’s neoliberal traditions and its rankings on the indicators.
Highlights
Many governments, corporations, and other institutions use data from surveys comparing national competitiveness
Instruments for ranking countries have mushroomed in recent decades, but most suffer from serious methodological flaws and ideological bias
The main purpose of our study was to test the assertion that by removing technical, ideological, and other flaws in the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR), and by adding environmental and social indicators, the competitiveness rankings of Anglo countries would drop substantially (Bergsteiner and Avery 2012), for the USA and UK. This prediction was wholly supported for the USA, UK, and Canada, but less so for Ireland, which ranked only slightly worse in our study, and for Australia and New Zealand, whose scores remained about the same
Summary
Corporations, and other institutions use data from surveys comparing national competitiveness. Instruments for ranking countries have mushroomed in recent decades, but most suffer from serious methodological flaws and ideological bias. Bergsteiner and Avery (2012) presented evidence of major methodological problems and a strong neoliberal bias in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report (GCR), probably the world’s most influential ranking. Do global country rankings change significantly by removing the GCR’s methodological flaws and ideological bias? Before presenting our methodology, discussing the analysis and results, and acknowledging the limitations and possible future directions of our study, we describe three key problems with the GCR and some other rankings. Among many flaws in country ranking reports generally, three major problems occur in the GCR: mixing inputs and outputs, strong ideological bias, and negating the importance of social and environmental outcomes. Given the seriousness of these three flaws, we discuss them in turn
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