Media.beam.usnews.com

[Pages:13]Best Countries 2019

Global rankings, international news and data insights

Copyright ? 2019 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

1

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

Overall Rankings

Overall Country

Rank

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

Citizenship

Cultural In uence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

1

Switzerland

2

Japan

3

Canada

4

Germany

5

United Kingdom

6

Sweden

7

Australia

8

United States

9

Norway

10 France

11 Netherlands

12 New Zealand

13 Denmark

14 Finland

15 Singapore

16 China

17 Belgium

18 Italy

19 Luxembourg

20 Spain

21 Ireland

22 South Korea

23 United Arab Emirates

24 Russia

25 Portugal

4

17

1

39

6

19

2

57

5

40

7

21

9

10

3

30

12

25

16

14

11

15

18

6

13

29

14

23

10

26

17

58

15

36

22

2

19

46

24

3

21

13

8

63

20

67

23

50

26

11

3

9

17

6

2 12

12 11

11

5

4 10

8

8

16

4

1 22

13

2

6 13

9 18

7 17

5 28

23 15

41 19

10 23

19

1

14 27

18

3

15 25

27 29

35 16

44 20

20 24

27 25 10 5 42 39 20 34 12 53 36 37 32 21 22 27 37 30

4 49 26 45 39 17 43 59 49 36 31 2 11 3 24 69

1 31 54 70

2 38 16 42 44 15 64 1 14 12

7 68

2 14 5 22 7 13

7 12 1 21 4 10 23 5 12

4 21 2 14 15 7 48 1 17

8 27 4 31 6 16 11 26 8 12 34 9

5 28 3 9 40 6 6 20 18 30 3 20 15 25 11 46 18 22 1 37 14 40 23 21 13 48 15 39 10 23 60 11 26 79 2 36 20 49 19

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

Overall Rankings

Overall Country

Rank

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

Citizenship

Cultural In uence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

26 Thailand 27 India 28 Brazil 29 Israel 30 Greece 31 Qatar 32 Saudi Arabia 33 Poland 34 Turkey 35 Mexico 36 Croatia 37 South Africa 38 Malaysia 39 Vietnam 40 Egypt 41 Czech Republic 42 Morocco 43 Indonesia 44 Costa Rica 45 Sri Lanka 46 Peru 47 Hungary 48 Argentina 49 Dominican Republic 50 Philippines

37

5

29

45

39

1

25

75

33

4

28

73

30

78

27

47

36

28

43

7

38

16

35

27

34

32

48

38

57

48

31

41

64

35

50

34

65

9

63

43

59

20

32

42

40

8

71

12

51

22

58 21

55 30

34

7

39 42

24 14

45 35

62 40

21 45

57 31

48 26

26 33

40 37

56 43

66 52

69 34

22 51

70 39

63 49

42 36

67 47

47 38

25 48

32 32

49 41

59 44

96 64 15 8 28 13 3 28 77 11 60 9 23 75 8 19 5 22 38 41 30 10 35 23 19 16 13 7 29 78 21 14 33 26 52 43 45 18 17 32 25 79 18 60 61 47 40 46

10 54 30 27 17 34 57 30 62 70 8 41 51 41 29 61 24 32 77 9 39 41 44 24 75 16 43 53 38 46 32 75 28 65 31 66 16 58 31 25 32 35 74 29 75 47 68 25 45 61 57 19 47 40 18 72 50 24 60 56 28 66 52 37 71 27 64 55 55 17 69 51 26 51 37

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

Overall Rankings

Overall Country

Rank

51 Estonia 52 Panama 53 Chile 54 Tanzania 55 Latvia 56 Slovenia 57 Lithuania 58 Ecuador 59 Slovakia 60 Uruguay 61 Myanmar 62 Romania 63 Oman 64 Guatemala 65 Ukraine 66 Colombia 67 Bulgaria 68 Kazakhstan 69 Ghana 70 Azerbaijan 71 Jordan 72 Tunisia 73 Belarus 74 Nigeria 75 Pakistan

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

Citizenship

Cultural In uence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

44

59

54

31

55

24

78

54

47

56

45

49

41

65

66

33

42

53

53

37

76

64

49

44

61

76

79

52

46

51

60

18

52

55

74

72

80

66

75

69

62

71

69

60

56

61

67

74

68

77

31 57 54 58 37 50 64 60 28 64 33 55 30 68 46 56 29 62 38 54 73 66 43 59 65 67 60 72 51 53 53 46 36 78 72 80 71 69 61 76 74 70 76 65 50 71 77 63 78 79

66 54 70 62 34 55 74 20 65 65 57 72 69 73 55 44 56 77 50 71 68 24 41 76 78 33 72 51 51 67 47 64 58 80 75 29 79 40 73 35 48 50 53 63 67 66 76 57 71 56

29 80 47 3 62 70

44 67 49 50 59 60 35 79 44 38 78 42 36 76 53 42 65 54 34 77 48 43 74 45 56 53 58 54 70 38 59 42 72 33 64 61 71 39 59 69 50 63 52 73 33 68 43 65 49 57 64 62 45 69 63 33 77 55 63 68 76 35 67 58 46 74 72 22 73

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

Overall Rankings

Overall Country

Rank

76 Lebanon 77 Serbia 78 Angola 79 Iran 80 Iraq

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

Citizenship

Cultural In uence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

72

70

58

62

77

68

70

79

73

80

75 61 52 75 68 74 80 73 79 77

46 48 63 74 80 58 59 52 62 61

73 36 78 67 52 71 66 56 76 80 13 79 78 19 80

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

How We Score

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall ranking score and the country attributes factored into each are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights do not add up to precisely 100.00 due to rounding.

Adventure (2.00%): Friendly, fun, pleasant climate, scenic, sexy

Citizenship (15.88%): Cares about human rights, cares about the environment, gender equality, progressive, religious freedom, respects property rights, trustworthy, welldistributed political power

Cultural Influence (12.96%): Culturally significant in terms of entertainment, fashionable, happy, has an influential culture, modern, prestigious, trendy

Entrepreneurship (17.87%): Connected to the rest of the world, educated population, entrepreneurial, innovative, provides easy access to capital, skilled labor force, technological expertise, transparent business practices, well-developed infrastructure, well-developed legal framework

Heritage (1.13%): Culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions

Movers (14.36%): Different, distinctive, dynamic, unique

Open for Business (11.08%): Bureaucratic, cheap manufacturing costs, corrupt, favorable tax environment, transparent government practices

Power (7.95%): A leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military

Quality of Life (16.77%): A good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system

Copyright ? 2019 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

3

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

Methodology

Behind a country's wealth and success are the policies that create possibilities, the people that drive the effort and the history that shapes the environment and perspective.

Globalization has expanded a country's presence beyond its physical borders, and the Best Countries rankings ? now in their fourth year ? seek to examine a nation's worth beyond hard metrics.

The 2019 Best Countries report and rankings are based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics, impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment and directly affect national economies. The report covers perceptions of 80 nations.

Ranking the Countries

The study and model used to score and rank countries were developed by BAV Group and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, specifically professor David J. Reibstein, in consultation with U.S. News & World Report.

A set of 65 country attributes ? terms that can be used to describe a country and that are also relevant to the success of a modern nation ? were identified. Attributes by nation were presented in a survey of more than 20,000 people from across the globe. Participants assessed how closely they associated an attribute with a nation.

Each country was scored on each of the 65 country attributes based on a collection

of individual survey responses. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic in relation to the average, the higher that country's attribute score and vice versa. These scores were normalized to account for outliers and transformed into a scale that could be compared across the board.

Attributes were grouped into nine subrankings that rolled into the Best Countries ranking: Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power and Quality of Life.

These thematic subrankings were formed by grouping country attributes that had similar global trends in survey responses. Subranking scores for each country were determined by averaging the scores that country received in each of the attributes comprising that subranking.

To determine the weight each subranking score had in the overall Best Countries score, each was correlated to 2017 gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita, a measure of inclusive prosperity, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. Subrankings that demonstrated a stronger relationship with the wealth metric were weighted more heavily, and all weights were standardized to total 100.

The Movers subranking represents a version of BAV's BrandAsset Valuator Model of Brand Building, a metric developed by BAV that is predictive of a country's future growth in terms of gross

Copyright ? 2019 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

4

Best Countries Overall Rankings 2019

domestic product at purchasing power parity. Instead of one year of data, it was correlated to projected growth through 2022.

who are broadly representative of the global population, with an emphasis on those who would deem the topic and findings most relevant to their lives.

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall ranking score and the country attributes factored into each are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights differ slightly from previous years, as they are tied to more recent gross domestic product data. They may not add up to precisely 100.00 due to rounding.

To arrive at a country's rank, we first calculated its standardized scores for each of the 65 country attributes. Each country received nine subranking scores by averaging its scores for the country attributes grouped into that subranking. A country's overall score reflects the weighted sum of its subranking scores. The subranking and overall scores were rescaled so that the top country in each category received a value of 100, and others were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Scores were ranked in descending order.

Additional lists rank the countries on more specific topics, such as the Best Countries for Women, the Best Countries to Raise Kids and the Best Countries for Education. Groups of relevant country attribute data were used to score and rank countries for these lists, but they do not affect the overall Best Countries score or ranking.

Choosing Survey Participants

To understand how countries are perceived, we endeavored to survey engaged citizens

Self-identification in demographic questions distinguished respondents into three defined groups: informed elites ? college educated individuals who consider themselves middle class or higher and who read or watch the news at least four days a week; business decision-makers ? senior leaders in an organization or small business owners who employ others; and general public ? adults at least 18 years old who were nationally representative of their country in terms of age and gender.

Individuals who were likely to fit these descriptions were targeted and sent the link to an online survey through Lightspeed GMI, a global market research and data collection firm. We aimed to gather an equal share of responses from each type of citizen.

A total of 20,301 individuals from 36 countries in four regions - the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and Africa - were surveyed. Of the respondents, 11,238 were informed elites and 5,963 were business decision-makers. Some respondents were considered both informed elites and business decisionmakers.

Regardless of demographics or participant type, each individual's responses weighed equally in the results.

Data Source: About the Survey

Survey participants were given a random subset of countries and country

Copyright ? 2019 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download