Best Countries
The World’s Best Countries Index is a composite statistic of 372 attributes, twelve for each of 31 categories. The study is based on a detailed global survey conducted by the CEOWORLD magazine in Partnership with the Global Business Policy Institute (GBPI) of 196,000 participants across the globe. In order to determine the rankings, researchers at the CEOWORLD magazine compiled, analyzed, and compared 150 nations across 31 key categories: adventure, citizenship, cultural influence, government spending, tax burden, fiscal health entrepreneurship, trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, heritage, movers, open for business, power, regulatory efficiency, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, quality of life, economic freedom and opportunity, among other categories. These attributes are combined into a common measure which gives an overall ranking.
Detailed findings & methodology: To evaluate those thirty-one categories, researchers looked at 372 indicators that fell into one of the 31 categories. An index has been created scoring the individual attributes on a scale of 1-100. Each individual indicator was given equal weighting within each of the 31 categories with some indicators being comprised of 2-3 sub-indicators that were also weighted equally. To secure a place on this year’s list, countries had to rank among the top 150 nations in the world in the U.N. Human Development Index as well as among the top 100 countries in terms of GDP, foreign direct investment inflows, and international tourism receipts, according to the World Bank data. Nations that did not meet these four criteria or that didn’t report this data were excluded.
CEOWORLD magazine put together a panel of experts to go over data points culled from sources like the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), World Economic Forum, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. News & World Report, the Index of Economic Freedom, the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council, and the World Bank. Based on a consensus from these sources, the final choice of countries was judged editorially, as was their position on the list. Some nations and territories were not included in the official statistics for various reasons, primarily due to the lack of necessary data. Also, countries and territories with low initial scores were excluded from the list as the comparison would create misleading results. All data is for the most recent period available.
This ranking should not be viewed as the most important aspect when choosing a place to build a business or live, and are merely one element to consider. The rankings are the result of a rigorous analytical exercise, incorporating multiple data sources, without relying on investment promotion agencies (IPA) and Government Industry trade data submissions.
The World's Best Countries Index by the CEOWORLD magazine
The CEOWORLD magazine sent its survey to participants that would be “broadly representative of the global population.” Those that participated hailed from 150 nations across the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 196,000 respondents is plus or minus 1.2 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that as in all survey research, there are possible sources of error—such as coverage, nonresponse, and measurement error——that could affect the results. Countries receive scores on each indicator as a fractional rank (100=top rank, 1=lowest) relative to all countries for which data are available. The category rankings are based on mean fractional ranks of the twelve indicators per category (subject to maximum two missing values per category). This yields a common measure which gives an overall ranking, a ranking in each of the thirty-one categories, and a balance-sheet for each country that shows at a glance how much it contributes to the world.