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Dr. José Caballero

IMD World Competitiveness Centre,

Lausanne/Switzerland

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking²¹, published by the IMD World Competitiveness Center, measures how well countries manage their overall resources to increase their long-term value creation. The ranking covers 61 countries and reflects more than 300 criteria, of which two-thirds are based on statistical indicators and one-third on a survey of 6,200 international executives. In this article, we trace the impact of two drivers of competitiveness: Country image and the quality of life it offers.

The competitiveness ranking includes a criterion related to the reputation of countries. To be precise, this criterion evaluates the image abroad of countries by asking executives to evaluate if the government of the country in which they reside encourages or discourages business development. The evaluation of a country’s image may reflect the impact of factors such as the executives’ perceptions about business regulation, the country’s adherence to the rules of international trade and the existence of barriers to investment by foreign nationals (e.g. regulation of capital markets).

The ranking also measures the quality of life by enticing executives to reflect on the level (whether they consider it high or low) of their country’s quality of life. Factors that may influence this criterion include the individuals’ ability to meet their ‘material’ expectations (e.g., access to specific goods and services), their life satisfaction (e.g., ability to enjoy family time) and absence of threats (e.g., effective government policies against crime and the protection of individual rights).

The IMD World Competitiveness Center also publishes the yearly IMD World Talent Report²². In this context, talent is understood as the skills and competencies necessaries to successfully perform specific activities. The talent report assesses the extent to which countries develop, attract and retain talent in order to sustain the talent pool available for enterprises operating in their economies.

The following table introduces the overall 2015 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, the two survey rankings based on the image abroad and quality of life criteria, and the overall 2015 IMD World Talent Report. Please note that Table 1 only presents those countries that are common to the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking/Talent Report and the Global Residence Program Index (GRPI; not shown in this article).

In general there is a strong correlation between a country’s overall competitiveness ranking and its international image as a place to do business. The sample presented includes five of the top 10 countries from the overall competitiveness ranking. Four of those five countries also make it to the top 10 for having an image abroad that encourages business development, according to executives based in each of these countries. Some executives, however, are far gloomier about their countries’ images which leads to some incongruities between the competitiveness ranking and a country’s image. For example, the US ranks first in overall competitiveness but emerges in the 23^th spot for image abroad. Similarly, Belgium ranks 23^th and 37^th respectively.

Table 1. Competitiveness and Relevant Criteria

In relation to the quality of life, it seems that most executives residing in the top 10 countries of the competitiveness ranking find the quality of life in those countries in need of enrichment; for example, Singapore ranks 3^rd in the overall ranking but emerges 17^th in the quality of life criterion. Of the sample presented, only Switzerland and Canada remain in the top 10 countries of both rankings.

Executives from countries found in the lower rankings of competitiveness conceived the quality of life in those countries as high. For example, Greece ranks 50^th in competitiveness but 36^th in quality of life; similarly, Spain ranks 37^th and 21^st respectively while Austria ranks 26^th in overall competitiveness but 3^rd in quality of life. This trend is consistent with studies that note an inverse relationship between economic progress and elements of the quality of life, such as a healthy environment²³.

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking and the GRPI largely coincide; although there are few exceptions. In the competitiveness rankings, Singapore and Hong Kong are placed in the top half of the group (3^rd and 2^nd respectively) while they rank in the bottom half of the GRPI (14^th and 16^th respectively). Similarly, Portugal ranks 36^th in the competitiveness ranking (bottom half) while it ranks first in the GRPI.

It is also interesting to note the parallels between the overall rankings of the IMD World Talent Report and the GRPI. Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Portugal, Switzerland, the UK and the US are placed in the top half of both rankings. Although, as in the case of the competitiveness ranking, there are some disparities: Hong Kong, Singapore and the UAE rank in the top half in talent development (12^th, 10^th and 20^th, respectively) but they remain in the bottom third of the GRPI. Incongruences, however, do not lessen the importance of the dynamics: It seems that there is a growing interconnectedness between a country’s talent development patterns and the effectiveness of its residence program. It may be the case that the inflow of overseas highly-qualified personnel results in a knowledge/competencies ‘spillover’ among the receiving country’s workforce. Further research is thus necessary to understand the impact of the interactions between ‘brain-gain’ and residence programs.

Dr. Caballero is a Senior Economist at the IMD World Competitiveness Center. His research interests focus on the sources of competitiveness with emphasis on the competitiveness of enterprises. He is particularly interested in behaviors and processes that strengthen the competitiveness of firms. Dr. Caballero has conducted research at the IMD Global Board Center, the International Institute for Corporate Governance (Yale School of Management) and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER, US). In addition, he has acted as an academic advisor to the World Justice Project in the development of the Rule of Law Index. He has also worked as a consultant for the European Union Support Program for Central American Integration, the Private Sector Advisory Department at the World Bank, the International Investment Corporation (World Bank), and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Dr. Caballero has taught at the University of Warwick (UK) and the University of the West of England (Bristol, UK). He holds a PhD (Politics and International Studies) from the University of Warwick and an MA (Social Science: Government) from Harvard University.

21The sample covered by the IMD Talent Report includes the same 61 countries assessed by the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking. IMD World Talent Report 2015, IMD World Competitiveness Center, Lausanne. Available from: http://www.imd.org/wcc/news-talent-report/

22Diener, E. & Suh, E., 1997. Measuring quality of life: Economic, social, and subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research, 40(1-2), p. 189–216

23https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/285220/Tier1investmentRoute.pdf [accessed 08 Feb 2016