Each year, there are a number of “competitive rankings” of countries published by various organizations. The best known of these is the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual Global Competitiveness Report, but there are many others. Some deal with entire economies, while others focus on particular niches, such as digital competitiveness or environmental sustainability.
A careful study of the 2020 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook released earlier this week should lead one to a certain conclusion about such reports: they are essentially innocuous outcomes of academic calisthenics, of little practical value to anyone except business reporters who need something to write about, and the reports’ parent institutions’ marketing departments that need to convince business executives to fork over piles of cash for “consulting services.”