The World Bank's assessment of economic performance and the environment for competitive business development
3/28/2000
The World Bank compiles this list of 49 competitiveness indicators in five main categories covering more than 150 countries and their "economic performance and environment for competitive business development." Categories covered include Overall Performance, Macro and Market Dynamism (investment and productivity growth, export structure and competitiveness, trade policy, government involvement in the economy), Financial Dynamism, Infrastructure & Investment Climate, and Human & Intellectual Capital. The information is available in two views, by country or in ranked lists by indicator, with easy maneuverability from one to the other. The World Bank offers a caution about the interpretation of these statistics, due to both "the limits of international data collection" and the difficulty of gauging competitiveness "by any single or even defined set of variables." But with those qualifications in mind, it remains an excellent and well-documented compilation of data from a variety of international sources.