As a headhunter I’m always intrigued to learn from my candidates precisely what occurred during their interviews. Sometimes this information is conveyed in the form of an interview follow up email to the hiring manager where I’m Cc’d on the message.

What rarely works is the generic horn blowing, ego-tooting “I BELIEVE I’M THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THE JOB” note similar to this one:

“Dear Hiring Manager,

I appreciate the time you recently took to discuss with me the position you currently have open at _______________(COMPANY). It...

When Americans talk about entrepreneurs, or at least the reasons for becoming one, the possibility of great success is most often the first topic of discussion. The great wealth that company founders such as Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg amassed certainly make the idea of starting a business more attractive to potential entrepreneurs. But according to a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, we should be paying more attention to the down-side risks when it comes to fostering entrepreneurship.

The new paper, by economists John Hombert and David Thesmar of HEC Paris,...

Remember this time last year, when it was fashionable to predict that 2014 would be a pretty bad year for emerging markets?  Didn’t really happen, did it? Now I hear analysts saying the crisis they’d been counting on has only been postponed. It’ll happen next year instead. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

In this discussion, one crucial fact is both obvious and always forgotten: The so-called emerging markets are all quite different. They don’t move in unison. Take the impact of cheaper oil. Just as in the advanced economies, it’s...

Personnel recruitment is a key challenge for all organizations and we know that financial incentives play an important role in determining who applies for a job (Dal Bó et al. 2013,Ashraf et al. 2014). The theoretical literature indicates that when candidates have imperfect information about a job, financial incentives can convey a signal about broader job attributes (Benabou and Tirole 2003). Paying a person a lot of money to perform a task might signal that the task is hard or unpleasant, or that it has other specific features. If these features are important to workers, then the signal ...

Manufacturers are bullish on the US these days, and for good reason. Unit labour costs are dropping even as productivity is increasing compared with many countries in Europe at the same time that US energy costs have gone down. Between 2007 and 2012, for example, US labour productivity increased by nearly 3%—while in the UK, labour productivity declined by about 3% over the same period, according to the Conference Board. And natural gas prices in the US, driven lower by the shale oil and gas boom, are half what they are in Europe.

Manufacturers in Europe, in particular, are hard-...

If there’s one question that every leader must ask, it’s: Am I alone here?

There’s something about being a boss that incontrovertibly lends itself to isolation; it’s as if every natural force is working to “protect” you from reality. Good news travels up fast, but bad news festers in the trenches where those who possess it hope they can make it go away before anyone notices.

When you’re a leader, you have to get aggressive against that creeping insularity. The last thing you can afford to do is allow yourself to be pushed into a corner...

The next time you tell yourself that you’ll sleep when you’re dead, realize that you’re making a decision that can make that day come much sooner. Pushing late into the night is a health and productivity killer.

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, the short-term productivity gains from skipping sleep to work are quickly washed away by the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on your mood, ability to focus, and access to higher-level brain functions for days to come. The negative effects of sleep deprivation are so great...

Opec’s decision to leave its output ceiling of 30m barrels a day unchanged on Thursday has sent crude prices into a tailspin. Under normal conditions, falling oil prices would be a favorable macroeconomic development, but under current circumstances this is making the job harder for central bankers who struggle to deliver on their inflation targets.

Demand and supply since September

Wonkblog writes that there’s one short-term reason and three longer-term reasons for this slump. The meeting was the most important in years, because it came amid a pre-existing slump in...

“The debate in Europe is too focused on fiscal and monetary policy: austerity and quantitative easing. That is misguided. Production creates growth, and it is obvious that Europe has a huge productivity problem, especially with respect to technology and innovation,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at GE. He was speaking at the high-level event “Let’s Get Europe Working” in Brussels on November 18 organised by The Economist and European Voice and sponsored by GE. Participants identified a range of areas where Europe needs to act urgently to boost growth and cope with rising global...

Building a successful business from the ground up isn’t easy, and no one does it alone.

For the entrepreneurs who make it, the difference between giving up and persisting through the toughest times can be getting advice from people who have done it before — and being smart enough to listen.

From billionaire Mark Cuban’s dad telling him that there are no shortcuts to Lululemon founder Chip Wilson’s realization that people actually enjoy helping others, we asked 15 successful entrepreneurs to share the best advice they ever got, discovering the lessons that...

In the last decade many economists and policymakers have been interested in the relationship between firm heterogeneity and exports. As economies globalise , it has become important to understand this relationship in order to devise effective industrial policies.

In academia, models by Melitz (2003) and Helpman et al. (2004) suggest that productive firms develop external markets by foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports, while less productive firms focus on domestic markets. Many empirical papers examine such implications and obtain supportive results. Loecker and Warzynski (...

After 2 years I have just completed an executive education program in leadership at the World Economic Forum. After listening to the insights of Bill Gates, having tea with President Kagame and interacting with countless academic gurus you’d imagine that I’d have plenty of profound insights on the matter – maybe the top ten traits that define a leader or perhaps the four essential strategies to success. Perhaps more important than what I learned, is how I learned.

In New York last summer we were privileged to have the Impact Repertory Theatre perform for us. Professor Jamal Joseph,...

This has been a very engaging debate and I want to thank Omar as well as the organizers and contributors. In this concluding statement, I’d like to highlight both those areas where we agree and those where we still end up with different perspectives.

We can agree on the following:

Everyone needs skills and continued skills upgrading.This is a no brainer. We all value education and those of us who are parents want to make sure our kids have the opportunity to learn and acquire the skills so that they become successful adults. Everything else being equal, countries with a...

Dr. Denis Medvedev, the World Bank Group’s Senior Country Economist, spoke at the IIM Calcutta on the Next Wave of Economic Reforms in India on 20th November, this year.  The talk focused on the challenges facing the Indian economy in achieving inclusive growth with a special focus on reducing poverty in the lower income states.

Dr. Medvedev touched on how external conditions including falling energy prices, improving foreign portfolio and direct investments have resulted in positive outcomes in India’s economy. He stressed that US economic recovery was a bonus for India because the...

In economic policy, as in most other areas, actions speak louder than words. By cutting its benchmark policy interest rates on November 21, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has underscored the tactical focus of the government’s stabilization policy, which aims to put a floor of around 7% on GDP growth.

Achieving this goal will be no small feat. China’s economy is caught in the crossfire of structural and cyclical headwinds. Structural pressures have arisen from the shift to a new model...

After the Global Crisis, some European countries reduced their public sector wages to ensure fiscal sustainability. In Japan, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the wages of the central government officials were cut for two years to finance the reconstruction expenses. Even in normal times, the appropriate level of public sector wages is debated frequently in every country. Because wages are an important incentive for workers, appropriate wage levels and their structure in the public sector are essential for ensuring the quality and efficiency of public services. In this column, I...

In a few years manufacturing and resource exploitation might be highly localized, services automated, employee productivity and consumer sentiment highly transparent and predictable, and human enhancement widespread. What would this really mean for “us” as individuals and for our economy?

1. Will robots be our peers?
The boundary between human and machine is becoming increasingly tenuous. The possibilities for enhancing ourselves might increasingly allow us to work like machines. Robots themselves might soon be endowed with traditional human attributes such as cognition and...

Economic growth, as we learned long ago from the works of economists like MIT’s Robert M. Solow, is largely driven by learning and innovation, not just saving and the accumulation of capital. Ultimately, economic progress depends on creativity. That is why fear of “secular stagnation” in today’s advanced economies has many wondering how creativity can be spurred.

One prominent argument lately has been that what is needed most is Keynesian economic stimulus – for example, deficit spending...

Americans had accumulated more than 1 trillion dollars in student loan debt as of 31 December, 2013. While the press conveyed widespread concern over this number, it might be that efficient credit markets are allowing more individuals to invest in education, with large rewards in terms of future earnings. After all, young college graduates earned 62.5% more on average than high school graduates in 2013 (Taylor et al. 2014). However, researchers have started paying more attention to the fact that the huge average ‘college wage premium’ masks large differences in post-college earnings. In...

There is a fundamental shift taking place in our economy: we’re moving away from manufacturing and services, and towards creative economies where companies that embrace information, agility and the “cross-pollination” of technology will thrive.

The creative economy has been defined as: “An economy in which the driving force is innovation. It is an economy in which organizations are nimble and agile, and continually offering new value to customers, and delivering it sooner.”

It is not just companies that can benefit. Individuals who embrace and integrate new forms of...

The Ebola crisis reminds us, once again, of the downside of globalization. Not only good things – like principles of social justice and gender equality – cross borders more easily than ever before; so do malign influences like environmental problems and disease.

The crisis also reminds us of the importance of government and civil society. We do not turn to the private sector to control the spread of a disease like Ebola. Rather, we turn to...

The race is on between the US and China to dominate the rules-setting game for trade by being the first to be able to announce plans for a free trade area in the Pacific Rim. China hopes to use its position as this year’s chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to propose a feasibility study on a Free Trade Agreement for the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), first mooted in 2006.  In other words, negotiations towards an FTAAP that would cover more than 60 percent of the world economy would commence, for all practical purposes.

But if the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) can...

Many of the people I’ve interviewed for job openings over the years had a nasty habit of talking too much. I would check my watch to signal my boredom and try to hurry things up.

But to no avail, they kept on talking – and talked themselves out of the job.

Here are 9 ways to dramatically improve your chances of getting the job, by saying less.

1. The 90-second rule: None of your answers should be more than 90 seconds long. Brevity demonstrates your ability to be succinct, to the point. The interviewer needs you to do this, so that you don’t waste company...

A startling 86% of respondents to the Survey on the Global Agenda agree that we have a leadership crisis in the world today. Why would they say this? Perhaps because the international community has largely failed to address any major global issue in recent years. It has failed to deal with global warming, then barely dealt with the failure of the global economy, which has caused such severe problems in North America and Europe. Meanwhile violence has been left to fester in the Middle East, the region our Survey showed is most affected by, and concerned about this problem. So why are we...

Germany’s awful industrial production figures released on Thursday are yet another reminder that the outlook for Europe’s largest economy is increasingly looking grim. Unfortunately for Berlin, the country’s problems are largely of its own making, as it ignored the plight of its eurozone neighbours.

Production rose just 0.8% in September, well below analysts expectations of a 2.3% boost. The figure compounded bad news from the previous month which saw a shocking 5.7% drop (now revised to 4.2%).

So what’s going on? Well, a look at Germany’s major...

The evidence on the effectiveness of business training is, at best, mixed (for an example, see my previous post on David McKenzie and Chris Woodruff’s artful review). As David and Chris point out, part of the problem was methods (esp. sample size). But even when the methods were good, the results were often lackluster, particularly for women.

A nice new paper by Erica Field, Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande, and Natalia Rigol, provides a counterpoint. And it’s a counterpoint that relies on friends. Field and co. evaluate a quite short business training program run by...

Last month I had the privilege of introducing two of my heroes, Premal Shah, President of Kiva and Charles Best, Founder & CEO of DonorsChoose.org, as our Keynote speakers at the 2014 VolunteerMatch Client Summit in Detroit.

We asked them to have a conversation with each other about how technology is reinventing giving and engagement. As they were talking back and forth and sharing their stories, I was struck by how two gifted leaders go about educating, engaging and inspiring an audience to get involved. Needless to say, they are both very good at it.

Here are five...

The European Commission’s new president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has put public investment back on the agenda with his idea of a three-year €300 billion ($378 million) capital spending plan. The European Union’s leaders are expected to discuss his proposal in December. Everyone seems to agree that more investment would help to strengthen a worryingly feeble European economy. But, behind the superficial consensus, many questions remain unanswered.

For starters, this is not the first time that...

It looks as if labor markets in Latin America have not been following the economic news—literally! Economic activity has slowed markedly in the last three years, with some South American countries slipping into outright recession more recently. Yet, labor markets still appear remarkably strong, with unemployment rates, in particular, hovering at record-low levels in most countries (Figure 1). So, what is going on? Has the region discovered how to defy the law of gravity?

...

For 2014, we project that Russia’s economy will grow at an estimated 0.3-0.5 percent. This is the lowest growth rate since the global financial crisis but higher than the high-risk case scenario which was expected since the geopolitical tension started and the sanctions of the EU and the US took hold. This means that Russia’s expected economic performance in 2014 will be similar to that of the Euro-zone, even though Russia is much more dependent on the European market than the EU is on Russia.

In the last half year, we witnessed a fast adjustment to a relatively stable but slightly...

Japan is the petri dish for the struggle against the secular stagnation that is now gripping most major developed economies. And, notwithstanding all of the fanfare surrounding “Abenomics”, Japan’s economy remains moribund. In the six quarters of Shinzo Abe’s latest stint as prime minister, annualized real GDP growth has averaged just 1.4% – up only slightly from the anemic post-1992 average of 1%.

Abenomics, with its potentially powerful combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus,...

The CEO of an internationally renowned technology company was forced to make a groveling apology recently after he was widely criticized for advising women not to ask for a raise but, instead, to have “faith in the system”.

Having “faith in the system” has not helped women reach their full potential in the workplace. Women in the US are earning 57% of all bachelor’s degrees, 60% of all master’s degrees and 52% of all doctorate degrees, yet they account for only around one-fifth of CEOs at S&P 500 companies, just 4.6% of Fortune 1,000 CEO positions and 14.6% of executive officer...

If macroeconomic indicators are to be believed, Egypt’s economic growth has ground almost to a halt over the past three years. Inflows of foreign direct investment have dried up, and GDP growth rates have plummeted from as high as 7% in 2008 and 2009 to merely 2% in 2013. But are the indicators to be believed?

The answer is yes and no. Though GDP should never be taken as an accurate representation of a country’s economic health, in Egypt, the figures do reflect the collapse of the country...

In a perfect world, everyone who applies for an open position at your company is well qualified, enthusiastic and a good fit for your work environment.

But let’s be realistic. Many job descriptions are written quickly and come across as vague and unfocused. This approach encourages a high volume of unqualified applicants and also deters some of your best prospects. Because here’s the bottom line: if you want to attract quality applicants, you need to write a quality job description.

Writing a great job description can be a bit challenging, but it’s also easier than it seems....

“The circular economy needs to make sense to policy-makers in developing countries as well as in Europe and the US – otherwise it’s just whistling in the wind.”

So said my sceptical Indian friend on the way back from the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China. We all know that the current linear economic model is not sustainable. Materials are extracted, manufactured into products and then discarded into landfill – it’s a system that wastes valuable resources, causes environmental damage and will make it near impossible...

In today’s lightning fast, roller-coaster business environment, the concept of solely developing deep expertise in one skillset in order to sequentially climb each rung of the career ladder to get to the top is an anachronism. Yet many organizations and employees are still in the dark, mistakenly believing that supporting this strategy leads to the greatest probability of career and company success.This handicaps, if not completely derails, them both.

Why? Because the complexity, competitive landscape, and shrinking budgets of many enterprises require a dynamic workforce with...

In 1950, the world’s population was 2.5 billion people. Today, it is over 7 billion. By 2050, it will be nearly 10 billion.

This explosive growth has put huge strains on our natural resources, but at the same time it has helped create conditions for an unprecedented period of global economic growth, which has seen billions lifted out of poverty.

The financial future we face today is uncertain. Most people think global growth will average 3% per year for the foreseeable future, as opposed to 5% before the global economic crisis. This means that it will take 25 years for...

The basis of the debate about migration into European countries is the perception that immigrants are unskilled and poor. Hence, the narrative goes, their arrival hurts the wages and employment prospects of less educated natives. At the same time, very little discussion is devoted to the patterns and economic consequences of emigration from European countries to other developed countries. The recent high-profile book by Collier (2013) is a typical example of this approach.

Yet, the data indicate this might all be misguided. As Docquier...

The World Economic Forum has been enriched by the contributions of globally minded and digital innovators. So it will be no surprise that I view digital technologies and digitally delivered services as critical to fostering Europe’s competitiveness. When governments, companies and individuals embrace the new digital era, they open the possibility of driving innovation through new products, processes and services.

They can also enable more inclusive and democratic engagement in the economy for all Europeans.

Receiving an economic boost from the digital era is not a luxury – it...

For more than a century, the United States has been the dominant global force for innovation. But China and other Asian countries are now testing that dominance, and the West should welcome the challenge.

China’s move from imitation to innovation has been a matter of national policy in recent years. In 2011, for example, the government established a set of ambitious targets for the production of patents. Almost immediately, China became the ...

New York City is a fascinating place, but especially during UN Week. Lots of interesting people doing interesting work on behalf of the world. I was there last week and had the privilege of speaking with Bob Safian at the Social Good Summit about my new role as the UN Foundation’s first Global Advocate for Entrepreneurship.

My goal as Global Advocate is to help pave the way for the next billion jobs by advocating for the No. 1 creator of jobs—the world’s entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have an uphill climb and, as the source for roughly 70 percent of new jobs globally, it’s critical...

Gulf economies are taking bets on the future, spending billions on new airports, bigger ports and more extensive transport networks in order to continue to fuel economic growth. Yet these investments are meaningless in the long-term unless we can develop local manpower – and womanpower – to manage this growth.

There are three serious structural problems in labour markets in Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that need to be addressed urgently:

The first is a public sector share of the economy that...

With economic growth rates improving in advanced economies, countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Eurasia share an urgent economic imperative: unlocking new sources of long-term growth. Unlocking underemployed resources at regional and national levels calls for renewed focus on improving competitiveness.

The World Economic Forum defines competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of an economy. Raising productivity in Europe, MENA and Eurasia will in turn enable higher levels of prosperity for...

While the issue of youth unemployment features highly on national and international policy agendas, young people are not involved enough in the decision-making process. What must be done to address this and increase their overall economic opportunity?

Looking long term, competitiveness must be thought of in terms of what young people want and need. Obviously, one of the major difficulties in incorporating these youth issues is the fact that youth themselves are an extremely heterogeneous group. This was highlighted in the Global Youth Wellbeing Index. The index also shows that...

Innovation isn’t easy. It takes courage to experiment and advance a new idea and determination to ensure its widespread use. Europe has always excelled at this. Radio, television, and the standard for second-generation mobile communications, GSM, all originated in Europe. But past success won’t ensure Europe’s long tradition of innovation continues.

New technologies require more risk-taking and the ability to launch new products with speed and scale. There is no doubt that Europe is poised to embrace the new, digital world. Its citizens have the education, skills, and ambition...

What is the biggest source of violence in our world? With the brutal conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere constantly in the news, many people would probably say war. But that turns out to be spectacularly wrong.

Getting it right matters if we are to find cost-effective solutions to this and other global problems. Obviously, everyone would like to stop wars and violence, just as we would like to end poverty, hunger and global warming, while providing education to all. But, given...

After more than five years of exceptionally low interest rates, the United States Federal Reserve is getting closer to the point of managing a lift-off of policy interest rates from close to zero. As of today, lift-off is expected to take place by around mid-2015.

But this is not set in stone. The Fed has repeatedly emphasized that the timing will depend on the state of the US economy. If things look better, policy rates may increase earlier. Conversely, weaker than expected data may mean that interest rates move up later.

In our view, based on our most recent economic...

Though the world’s eyes are on Scotland’s referendum on independence from the United Kingdom, Scotland is not alone in seeking to redraw national boundaries. There are independence movements in many other parts of the world; indeed, 39 new states have joined the United Nations since 1980. Many more aspirants are waiting in the wings, and would likely be encouraged by a Scottish “yes” vote.

The Scottish pro-independence campaign is based on...

The Chinese economy has grown rapidly and created tremendous wealth. Nominal GDP has grown 7.5 times between 2000 and 2013. Total household income has about doubled between 2005 and 2012 alone and stands to more than triple between 2012 and 2030. By 2030, the upper middle class will make up more than half of urban households. However, this rapid growth puts a tremendous strain on resources. China’s growth demands a strong supply of raw materials, water, energy, and food, among others. One potential remedy to resource supply constraints and consequently high resource prices and volatility...

A selection of the top photographs taken during the second day of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2014 in Tianjin, China.

As an economic policy adviser and someone who teaches policies for competitiveness, I often wonder which policies governments of the Eurasian region should pursue individually vs collectively to enhance their competitiveness?

Having contributed to the World Economic Forum’s scenario work on the South Caucasus and Central Asia, my view on this question is clear: work together, not alone. In fact, the question is not only “which” policies to pursue alone or together, but rather “how” to move from alone to together.

Einstein wrote: “We cannot solve our problems with the same...

Why has China’s e-commerce industry developed so fast? I get asked this in almost every country I visit, usually closely followed by the question: “Could the same happen here?” To try to answer, I focus on the following six points:

This has created an enormous supply of product that manufacturers, distributors and retailers are looking to get rid of at a marginal price, ideally into a part of China that they are not focused on. Chinese mom and pop retailers, distributors and the...

Last June, a UN task force in charge of developing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) released a zero draft. While the final framework is expected to be adopted by the UN in 2015, the latest draft shows how the SDGs are incorporating and upscaling many of the older Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

At the centre of this political process is a more encompassing vision of sustainable development: “Poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are...

For more than 30 years the World Economic Forum has studied and benchmarked competitiveness, widely accepted as the key driver for sustaining prosperity and improving the well-being of a nation’s citizens.

Now the Forum is building a competitiveness repository to showcase examples of successful competitiveness programmes that rely on public-private collaboration. Here are 10 examples from around the world.

Austria: TheKPlus Competence Centre Programme, jointly funded by government and private enterprise, was created in the late 1990s in recognition of the increasing...

For an economist whose job it is to measure countries’ success (or otherwise) in laying the foundations for long-term prosperity, the concept of green shoots for me takes on a different meaning to those most often reported in the press as harbingers of better times. Increases in gross domestic product, falls in joblessness and upticks in new housing starts are of course good and welcome, but taken alone these indicators offer us little insight into how the US economy will be doing in five or ten years’ time.

This is the purpose of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness...

The sub-Saharan African region has provided something of a silver lining in an otherwise broadly felt global economic downturn in recent years, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, which assesses 144 economies. Sub-Saharan economies continued to register impressive growth rates of close to 5% in 2013 – with rising projections for the next two years – below only emerging and developing Asia.

Yet significant risks remain. More than half of the 20 lowest-ranked countries in the report are sub-Saharan, and many markets have...

For the sixth consecutive edition, Switzerland tops the rankings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. Since 1979, this annual study has helped to pinpoint the reasons behind the differing fortunes of the countries studied – 144 economies in the 2014-2015 edition. For example, it helps explain Switzerland’s remarkable resilience throughout the Great Recession. Since 2007, the country experienced only a brief episode of recession in 2009. During that same period, Greece – ranked 81st in the report – has not seen a single year of growth and GDP shrank by some 25...

Large parts of the Middle East and North Africa continue to be affected by geopolitical conflict and turbulence. Yet, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, some North African economies are slowly stabilizing and are starting to focus on economic reform that will improve the business environment and help restore investor confidence.

At the same time, the annual study of 144 economies shows some small, energy-rich economies continuing to build on their resource-driven wealth to undertake structural reforms that will help...

The competitiveness landscape in the Asia-Pacific region remains one of stark contrasts. According to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, the region is home to three of the 10 most competitive economies in the world, and a further three feature in the top 20. However, at the other end of the regional spectrum, five countries rank below the 100 mark in this study of 144 economies. The Asian Tigers continue to perform strongly as measured by the report’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), but with the steady decline of South Korea, now...

An increasing number of US companies are making plans to shift their headquarters to Europe. These so-called “inversions” would reduce these companies’ total tax bill by allowing them to escape from the US’s uniquely unfavourable corporate tax rules. So what should US policy-makers do?

President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to block corporate inversion through administrative measures that may not hold up in US courts. It...

Each and every generation must contend with profound political, economic, social and above all, technological transformations. They not only change long-held assumptions about our future economic prospects but also create new expectations about human advancement and social progress. Yet the breadth and velocity of technological innovation appears equally inspiring and empowering as well as disruptive and ominous. Context, culture and circumstance all play a role in creating a positive or negative reaction.

For example, on one hand, a new era of industry advances in data analytics,...

Reducing income disparities has always ranked high among the top objectives of policy-makers as a measure to achieve and spread economic prosperity throughout the population. This objective has become even more important because the Great Recession we experienced in recent years has resulted in record-high unemployment rates and an increase in income disparities. In many countries, social protests have ensued.

Delocalization of economic activity, technological change and skills mismatches in fast-changing economic environments are just some of the factors behind the rise of income...

In recent years, many studies have highlighted the stark competitiveness divide that exists and persists between a highly productive and internationally competitive North, and a lagging South and East Europe. However, new results coming from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, suggests that Europe’s divide may be taking on a different complexion altogether.

Unsurprisingly, given the structural nature of many of the factors driving competitiveness, this year’s report continues to show a stubbornly high gap between the highly competitive Nordic countries...

The reception in the United States, and in other advanced economies, of Thomas Piketty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century attests to growing concern about rising inequality. His book lends further weight to the already overwhelming body of evidence concerning the soaring share of income and wealth at the very top.

Piketty’s book, moreover, provides a different perspective on the 30 or so years that followed the Great...

According to the latest World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, in order to keep up the positive economic momentum of recent years and boost competitiveness, Latin America and the Caribbean need to implement further structural reforms and strengthen investment in infrastructure, skills development and innovation.

The report, which covers 144 economies and ranks them on 12 key measures that influence competitiveness, finds that productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean remains low. But there are still success stories. Here are the top 10 performers in the region....

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 assesses the competitiveness of 144 economies based on 12 “pillars” which include institutions, infrastructure, health and education, labour market efficiency, technological readiness, innovation and business sophistication.

Click through our gallery and find out how different countries compare across the various pillars.

Video: What is the Global Competitiveness Report?

Author: Margareta Drzeniek, Director, Lead Economist, Head of Global Competitiveness Risks at the World Economic Forum.

Some argue that growth across Africa is fundamentally a result of rising commodity prices and that if these prices were to collapse, so too would Africa’s growth rates (Lipton 2012). Others lament the so-called de-industrialization of Africa. They worry that without a vibrant manufacturing sector, unemployment will remain high and the economies of Africa will not catch up with the more advanced countries of the world (Rodrik 2014).Finally, some warn that youth unemployment could lead to social unrest in sub-Saharan Africa (Filmer and Fox, 2014).

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 assesses the competitiveness of 144 world economies based on 12 “pillars” which include institutions, infrastructure, health and education, labour market efficiency, technological readiness, innovation and business sophistication. Scroll through the gallery above to find out this year’s top 10 countries.

See how well different countries perform on our latest Global Competitiveness Index:

Author: Margareta Drzeniek, Director, Lead Economist, Head of Global Competitiveness Risks at the World Economic Forum.

All images...

Economic recovery across Europe is mixed, with many countries now recording stronger growth, while others continue to suffer from weak growth driven by protracted internal demand, high unemployment and financial fragmentation.

According to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, six European countries are ranked among the global top 10 most competitive economies. However, many countries in Southern and Central and Eastern Europe ranked poorly, highlighting the persistent divide between Northern Europe and the less competitive south and eastern...

Relapse is the rule in the post-crisis global economy. In the United States, Japan and Europe, GDP growth faltered again in the first half of 2014. These setbacks are hardly a coincidence. Persistent sluggish growth throughout the developed world has left major economies unusually vulnerable to the inevitable bumps in the road.

Sure, there are excuses – there always are. A contraction in the US economy in the first quarter of the year was...

Why has China’s e-commerce industry developed so fast? I get asked this in almost every country I visit, usually closely followed by the question: “Could the same happen here?” To try to answer, I focus on the following six points:

This has created an enormous supply of product that manufacturers, distributors and retailers are looking to get rid of at a marginal price, ideally into a part of China that they are not focused on. Chinese mom and pop retailers, distributors and the...

Last June, a UN task force in charge of developing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) released a zero draft. While the final framework is expected to be adopted by the UN in 2015, the latest draft shows how the SDGs are incorporating and upscaling many of the older Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

At the centre of this political process is a more encompassing vision of sustainable development: “Poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are...

For more than 30 years the World Economic Forum has studied and benchmarked competitiveness, widely accepted as the key driver for sustaining prosperity and improving the well-being of a nation’s citizens.

Now the Forum is building a competitiveness repository to showcase examples of successful competitiveness programmes that rely on public-private collaboration. Here are 10 examples from around the world.

Austria: TheKPlus Competence Centre Programme, jointly funded by government and private enterprise, was created in the late 1990s in recognition of the increasing...

For an economist whose job it is to measure countries’ success (or otherwise) in laying the foundations for long-term prosperity, the concept of green shoots for me takes on a different meaning to those most often reported in the press as harbingers of better times. Increases in gross domestic product, falls in joblessness and upticks in new housing starts are of course good and welcome, but taken alone these indicators offer us little insight into how the US economy will be doing in five or ten years’ time.

This is the purpose of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness...

The sub-Saharan African region has provided something of a silver lining in an otherwise broadly felt global economic downturn in recent years, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, which assesses 144 economies. Sub-Saharan economies continued to register impressive growth rates of close to 5% in 2013 – with rising projections for the next two years – below only emerging and developing Asia.

Yet significant risks remain. More than half of the 20 lowest-ranked countries in the report are sub-Saharan, and many markets have...

Large parts of the Middle East and North Africa continue to be affected by geopolitical conflict and turbulence. Yet, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, some North African economies are slowly stabilizing and are starting to focus on economic reform that will improve the business environment and help restore investor confidence.

At the same time, the annual study of 144 economies shows some small, energy-rich economies continuing to build on their resource-driven wealth to undertake structural reforms that will help...

For the sixth consecutive edition, Switzerland tops the rankings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. Since 1979, this annual study has helped to pinpoint the reasons behind the differing fortunes of the countries studied – 144 economies in the 2014-2015 edition. For example, it helps explain Switzerland’s remarkable resilience throughout the Great Recession. Since 2007, the country experienced only a brief episode of recession in 2009. During that same period, Greece – ranked 81st in the report – has not seen a single year of growth and GDP shrank by some 25...

The competitiveness landscape in the Asia-Pacific region remains one of stark contrasts. According to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, the region is home to three of the 10 most competitive economies in the world, and a further three feature in the top 20. However, at the other end of the regional spectrum, five countries rank below the 100 mark in this study of 144 economies. The Asian Tigers continue to perform strongly as measured by the report’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), but with the steady decline of South Korea, now...

An increasing number of US companies are making plans to shift their headquarters to Europe. These so-called “inversions” would reduce these companies’ total tax bill by allowing them to escape from the US’s uniquely unfavourable corporate tax rules. So what should US policy-makers do?

President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to block corporate inversion through administrative measures that may not hold up in US courts. It...

Each and every generation must contend with profound political, economic, social and above all, technological transformations. They not only change long-held assumptions about our future economic prospects but also create new expectations about human advancement and social progress. Yet the breadth and velocity of technological innovation appears equally inspiring and empowering as well as disruptive and ominous. Context, culture and circumstance all play a role in creating a positive or negative reaction.

For example, on one hand, a new era of industry advances in data analytics,...

Reducing income disparities has always ranked high among the top objectives of policy-makers as a measure to achieve and spread economic prosperity throughout the population. This objective has become even more important because the Great Recession we experienced in recent years has resulted in record-high unemployment rates and an increase in income disparities. In many countries, social protests have ensued.

Delocalization of economic activity, technological change and skills mismatches in fast-changing economic environments are just some of the factors behind the rise of income...

In recent years, many studies have highlighted the stark competitiveness divide that exists and persists between a highly productive and internationally competitive North, and a lagging South and East Europe. However, new results coming from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, suggests that Europe’s divide may be taking on a different complexion altogether.

Unsurprisingly, given the structural nature of many of the factors driving competitiveness, this year’s report continues to show a stubbornly high gap between the highly competitive Nordic countries...

The reception in the United States, and in other advanced economies, of Thomas Piketty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century attests to growing concern about rising inequality. His book lends further weight to the already overwhelming body of evidence concerning the soaring share of income and wealth at the very top.

Piketty’s book, moreover, provides a different perspective on the 30 or so years that followed the Great...

According to the latest World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, in order to keep up the positive economic momentum of recent years and boost competitiveness, Latin America and the Caribbean need to implement further structural reforms and strengthen investment in infrastructure, skills development and innovation.

The report, which covers 144 economies and ranks them on 12 key measures that influence competitiveness, finds that productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean remains low. But there are still success stories. Here are the top 10 performers in the region....

Some argue that growth across Africa is fundamentally a result of rising commodity prices and that if these prices were to collapse, so too would Africa’s growth rates (Lipton 2012). Others lament the so-called de-industrialization of Africa. They worry that without a vibrant manufacturing sector, unemployment will remain high and the economies of Africa will not catch up with the more advanced countries of the world (Rodrik 2014).Finally, some warn that youth unemployment could lead to social unrest in sub-Saharan Africa (Filmer and Fox, 2014).

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 assesses the competitiveness of 144 economies based on 12 “pillars” which include institutions, infrastructure, health and education, labour market efficiency, technological readiness, innovation and business sophistication.

Click through our gallery and find out how different countries compare across the various pillars.

Video: What is the Global Competitiveness Report?

Author: Margareta Drzeniek, Director, Lead Economist, Head of Global Competitiveness Risks at the World Economic Forum.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 assesses the competitiveness of 144 world economies based on 12 “pillars” which include institutions, infrastructure, health and education, labour market efficiency, technological readiness, innovation and business sophistication. Scroll through the gallery above to find out this year’s top 10 countries.

See how well different countries perform on our latest Global Competitiveness Index:

Author: Margareta Drzeniek, Director, Lead Economist, Head of Global Competitiveness Risks at the World Economic Forum.

All images...

Economic recovery across Europe is mixed, with many countries now recording stronger growth, while others continue to suffer from weak growth driven by protracted internal demand, high unemployment and financial fragmentation.

According to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, six European countries are ranked among the global top 10 most competitive economies. However, many countries in Southern and Central and Eastern Europe ranked poorly, highlighting the persistent divide between Northern Europe and the less competitive south and eastern...

An increasing number of US companies are making plans to shift their headquarters to Europe. These so-called “inversions” would reduce these companies’ total tax bill by allowing them to escape from the US’s uniquely unfavourable corporate tax rules. So what should US policy-makers do?

President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to block corporate inversion through administrative measures that may not hold up in US courts. It...

Every year, the World Economic Forum recognises a group of companies whose innovations have the power to change industries and societies. Here is a full list of the Technology Pioneers of 2015.

Life Sciences & Health

The stagnating eurozone economy requires policy action. This column argues that EZ leaders should agree a coordinated 5% tax cut, extension of budget deficit targets by three or four years, and issuance of long-term public debt to be purchased by the ECB without sterilisation.

The mantra is that once again it is up to the ECB to save the eurozone. Quantitative easing is the last policy tool available to jumpstart the eurozone economy. The longer the ECB waits before starting to buy government bonds, the further away will the recovery be. This analysis, however, overestimates the...

The challenge of ensuring adequate, nutrient-rich food for an expanding global population is a daunting one, especially given constraints on key resources like water and agricultural land. As it stands, the two leading approaches to enriching and enlarging the world’s food supply are genetic engineering and industrial processing with additives and chemicals. Now, a third solution is emerging: vertical farming.

Academic studies have found...

Why has China’s e-commerce industry developed so fast? I get asked this in almost every country I visit, usually closely followed by the question: “Could the same happen here?” To try to answer, I focus on the following six points:

This has created an enormous supply of product that manufacturers, distributors and retailers are looking to get rid of at a marginal price, ideally into a part of China that they are not focused on. Chinese mom and pop retailers, distributors and the...

Last June, a UN task force in charge of developing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) released a zero draft. While the final framework is expected to be adopted by the UN in 2015, the latest draft shows how the SDGs are incorporating and upscaling many of the older Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

At the centre of this political process is a more encompassing vision of sustainable development: “Poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are...

For more than 30 years the World Economic Forum has studied and benchmarked competitiveness, widely accepted as the key driver for sustaining prosperity and improving the well-being of a nation’s citizens.

Now the Forum is building a competitiveness repository to showcase examples of successful competitiveness programmes that rely on public-private collaboration. Here are 10 examples from around the world.

Austria: TheKPlus Competence Centre Programme, jointly funded by government and private enterprise, was created in the late 1990s in recognition of the increasing...

For an economist whose job it is to measure countries’ success (or otherwise) in laying the foundations for long-term prosperity, the concept of green shoots for me takes on a different meaning to those most often reported in the press as harbingers of better times. Increases in gross domestic product, falls in joblessness and upticks in new housing starts are of course good and welcome, but taken alone these indicators offer us little insight into how the US economy will be doing in five or ten years’ time.

This is the purpose of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness...

The sub-Saharan African region has provided something of a silver lining in an otherwise broadly felt global economic downturn in recent years, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, which assesses 144 economies. Sub-Saharan economies continued to register impressive growth rates of close to 5% in 2013 – with rising projections for the next two years – below only emerging and developing Asia.

Yet significant risks remain. More than half of the 20 lowest-ranked countries in the report are sub-Saharan, and many markets have...

For the sixth consecutive edition, Switzerland tops the rankings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. Since 1979, this annual study has helped to pinpoint the reasons behind the differing fortunes of the countries studied – 144 economies in the 2014-2015 edition. For example, it helps explain Switzerland’s remarkable resilience throughout the Great Recession. Since 2007, the country experienced only a brief episode of recession in 2009. During that same period, Greece – ranked 81st in the report – has not seen a single year of growth and GDP shrank by some 25...

Large parts of the Middle East and North Africa continue to be affected by geopolitical conflict and turbulence. Yet, according to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, some North African economies are slowly stabilizing and are starting to focus on economic reform that will improve the business environment and help restore investor confidence.

At the same time, the annual study of 144 economies shows some small, energy-rich economies continuing to build on their resource-driven wealth to undertake structural reforms that will help...

The competitiveness landscape in the Asia-Pacific region remains one of stark contrasts. According to the latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15, the region is home to three of the 10 most competitive economies in the world, and a further three feature in the top 20. However, at the other end of the regional spectrum, five countries rank below the 100 mark in this study of 144 economies. The Asian Tigers continue to perform strongly as measured by the report’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), but with the steady decline of South Korea, now...

An increasing number of US companies are making plans to shift their headquarters to Europe. These so-called “inversions” would reduce these companies’ total tax bill by allowing them to escape from the US’s uniquely unfavourable corporate tax rules. So what should US policy-makers do?

President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to block corporate inversion through administrative measures that may not hold up in US courts. It...

La recuperación económica en toda Europa está mezclada, pues muchos países ahora registran un fuerte crecimiento, mientras que otros siguen sufriendo un crecimiento débil impulsado por prolongadas demandas internas, altas tasas de desempleo y fragmentación financiera.

De acuerdo con la última edición del Informe de Competitividad Global del Foro Económico Mundial, seis países europeos aparecen entre las 10 economías globales más competitivas. No obstante, muchos países del sur, centro y este de Europa han obtenido resultados deficientes, lo cual resalta la persistente brecha entre...

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014 - 2015 assesses the competitiveness landscape of 144 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The Report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide.

On August 15, Narendra Modi delivered his first Independence Day speech as India’s Prime Minister. Though he continued the tradition of addressing the country from the ramparts of Delhi’s historic Red Fort, the speech broke with convention. Shunning a written text, Modi extemporized for an hour, mapping out an explicit vision for India, including an economic model that constitutes a clean break from India’s past.

Since 1991, India has...

Nearly 30 years ago, Pittsburgh had an unemployment rate of over 17% and was losing thousands of jobs monthly; the steel industry on which it depended had been devastated in the late 20th century by slowing demand, higher costs and intense competition. Now, the city boasts lower-than-national-average unemployment rates.

While still employing 100,000 manufacturers as America’s second-largest market for industrial metal employment, Pittsburgh successfully reinvented itself by attracting and creating new industries, even earning a new moniker, “Roboburgh”, for its success in...

Countries around the world need to devolve power to cities and be more open to foreigners if they are to benefit from new patterns of urbanization, says Razeen Sally, associate professor at the National University of Singapore in this World Economic Forum video.

Here are some more quotes from the clip, and you can watch the full video at the top of this page:

“The hundred biggest cities in the world account for about 40% of world output. We see ever tighter connections across borders through trade, through foreign investment and the movement of people. It’s these...

Many organizations rely on prosocial behaviours – choices that benefit others but have a personal cost – to achieve their objectives. For instance, foundations rely on charitable contributions for funding, governments partly rely on voluntary compliance for tax revenue, and employers rely on voluntary referrals for hiring. Because such prosocial behaviours have positive externalities by definition, increasing such behaviour can improve welfare. What are the most effective policies to encourage prosocial behaviour?

While there is a...

Fears that immigration takes jobs away from natives and imposes significant costs on taxpayers continue to shape electoral campaigns and policy discourses in several countries. In a recent referendum, the Swiss population rejected the free movement of workers from the EU. In Germany, there are mounting fears that millions of poor immigrants from new EU member states would flock to the country, attracted by the generous welfare state.

The UK Prime Minister David Cameron has argued in favour of significant restrictions on labour mobility within the EU to limit inflows to the UK. And...

Summer is conference season – a critical time for building brands, making connections and shaping industries. Indeed, though people increasingly learn and interact online, we retain a fundamental need to engage in person. At conferences, such engagement is guided by a few basic principles. Understanding them – being “conference literate” – is critical to making the most of a conference, whether as an organizer, speaker or attendee.

Perhaps...

Conclusive evidence is still missing that signing bilateral investment treaties and other international investment agreements helps developing host countries attract more FDI – and yet, the number of such agreements has mushroomed. What is more, developing countries have witnessed a wave of litigation – and yet they increasingly agreed to stricter FDI-related provisions in international investment agreements, in particular with regard to investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms and pre-establishment national treatment of foreign investors.

According to Online and Underground, a survey launched earlier this spring by the New Cities Foundation, Ericsson and the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), 77% of surveyed subway systems provide their customer with some level of internet access, either in stations (73%) or on board trains (58%). Over the next three years, 68% of surveyed subway systems plan on extending broadband connectivity in their existing stations.

Extending into one of the last internet-free urban reaches, underground connectivity is arguably an unnecessary or unwelcome over-saturation. In...

Poor countries export raw materials such as cocoa, iron ore, and raw diamonds. Rich countries export – often to those same poor countries – more complex products such as chocolate, cars, and jewels. If poor countries want to get rich, they should stop exporting their resources in raw form and concentrate on adding value to them. Otherwise, rich countries will get the lion’s share of the value and all of the good jobs.

Poor countries could...

In recent years, China and India have both emerged as global economic superpowers, with China leading the way. But with Chinese growth slowing and the need for structural change becoming increasingly acute, will the economic-reform efforts of India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, enable the country to catch up?

Since the 1980s, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth, fuelled by abundant low-cost labour, high saving and...

Current high public debt burdens are due to three main forces:

In some countries, the deflation tendency is most probably due to inadequate demand in the market and falling wages. If demand was adequate, but supply was deficient, rising inflation...

The original concept behind the BRIC acronym (which represents Brazil, Russia, India and China) was to identify the countries with the greatest growth potential in the first half of the 21st century, based on features such as population, demography, growth rates and the embracing of globalization. The theory was that China would become the most important global exporter of manufactured goods (which is the case today), India the most significant exporter of services (which did not transpire) and Russia and Brazil would dominate as exporters of raw materials.

The five members of the...

Flexible immigration procedures are essential for skilled workers to move easily between countries and businesses. However, all around the world, there’s a certain tension between the needs of governments seeking to manage immigration, and businesses wanting to hire the most talented people. As the global competition for talent intensifies, new policies for resolving this tension have emerged, including preferential visa regimes for certain types of workers and quotas.

One region that lags behind in tackling these issues is Africa. While the free movement of labour is a principle...

Recent research shows that start-up rates increase by as much as 20% when entrepreneurship lessons are provided in schools. As we educate the next wave of business owners, we should give young people first-hand experience of the link between entrepreneurship and innovation.

Today’s digital natives are the most adept at using technology, but at the same time they are less certain of the innovative processes that created them. The younger generation need to learn how to create value in the digital economy, and embrace the opportunities that abound in science and engineering. This can...

Education is undoubtedly a critical driver of economic growth and social mobility. But efforts to expand access to education have typically focused on the primary level, while neglecting tertiary schooling. And initiatives that have emphasized post-secondary learning have placed relatively little emphasis on educational quality. This has to change.

The influence of higher education on social mobility is particularly pronounced in low-income countries, where the scarcity of skilled human capital gives tertiary-educated workers a significant wage premium. The problem is that many of...

International investors, representatives of international and regional organisations, and African leaders from government and civil society, who attended the World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, Nigeria last month are seeking to translate the region’s economic promise and youthful demographics into employment opportunities and poverty reduction.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a rare bright spot in a still-sluggish world economy, with the International Monetary Fund projecting 6% output growth this year. A decade of expansion has been driven by peace, better economic governance,...

They’re calling it a “TsuNaMo”. More than a victory for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), they’re calling it a victory for Narendra Modi. And Modi himself is calling it a victory for India. Whatever we call it, India has voted against the incumbents, and the desire for change could not be greater.

In his first hundred days, however, the BJP leader will be under pressure to demonstrate that he can leverage his electoral mandate and deliver a realistic programme for growth over the next five years.

Just a fortnight before the election results were announced, the World Economic...

Six European countries feature in the top 10 – with others in the top 20 – of the global rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, which assesses the competitiveness of 148 economies around the world. The performance of the 10 most competitive economies in Europe are found below:

1.     Switzerland once again retains its 1st place thanks to a strong performance across the board. The country’s most notable strengths are related to innovation and labour market efficiency as well as the sophistication of its business sector. Switzerland’s top...

Competitiveness will feature prominently in the programme of the 2013 World Economic Forum on East Asia, taking place this week in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar’s capital. And rightly so: competitiveness is a critical driver of both prosperity and integration.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 paints a mixed picture of ASEAN’s competitiveness. In the ranking of 144 economies, Singapore comes in second overall behind Switzerland. Cambodia, ASEAN’s worst performer, places 85th among the 144 economies studied (Myanmar and Lao PDR are not included). This profound competitiveness...

On a biennial basis, The Africa Competitiveness Report highlights areas requiring policy action and investment to ensure Africa lays the foundation for inclusive and sustained growth.

The Africa Competitiveness Report 2013 comes at a time of growing international attention on Africa as an investment destination and increasing talk of an African economic renaissance. It is the fourth report in this series to leverage the knowledge and expertise of the three partnering organizations – the African Development Bank, the World Bank Group and the World Economic Forum – to present a...

Despite improvements since 2009, consumer confidence remains below 2007 levels. Uncertainty prevails, with the Eurozone crisis, the US fiscal cliff and China’s rising inflation – all contributing to a dip in confidence towards the end of 2012. Against this backdrop, tourism had a record year in 2012, with increased global mobility driving international arrivals of over 1 billon, coupled with expenditure of US$ 1.2 trillion. This highlights the resilience of the sector and reinforces its importance as a key contributor to GDP.

Downturns in consumer confidence have historically...

Giulia Carbone explains why the tourism industry needs to address ecological threats

Tourism needs a healthy and pristine environment. No other industry relies as heavily on unspoilt scenery and natural diversity to attract the crowds. When nature suffers, travel companies suffer, too. The question is how to create synergies between the tourism industry and conservation efforts, allowing both to thrive while minimizing negative impact.

For many conservation projects, ecotourism seems the perfect way to raise funds. Travellers in search of pristine natural beauty can...

Under the theme “Reducing Barriers to Economic Growth and Job Creation”, The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 assesses 140 economies worldwide based on the extent to which they are putting in place the factors and policies to make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism sector. Read the full news release for more information.

The 2013 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) reveals that Switzerland, Germany and Austria lead the world in terms of travel and tourism competitiveness, with Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Canada...

Michael Bradshaw asks whether Russia, for all its economic growth, is too dependent on natural resources. Read the World Economic Forum’s report: Scenarios for the Russian Federation.

The Russian Federation’s economic growth story has had more twists and turns in it than a Danish thriller.

Almost two decades after transitioning from a planned to a market economy, and following a decade of buoyant growth, the country was hit hard by the financial and economic crisis of 2008 and 2009. Oil prices collapsed and Russia’s financial sector suffered greatly...

For more than three decades, the World Economic Forum has been working on the topic of national competitiveness, in an effort to understand and measure what drives national productivity and prosperity.

Being competitive requires countries to have in place a mix of factors such as solid infrastructure, a healthy and educated workforce, efficient markets, and a propensity for technological adoption and innovation. Over the years, we have continued to integrate the latest thinking and priorities into our work, with a goal of supporting national and regional efforts towards...

Professor Klaus Schwab is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. His e-book, The Re-Emergence of Europe, was published on 14 December and available free of charge at http://www.weforum.org/re-emergence-europe

The eurozone will not break up. The price of departure is simply too great for any one country. Indeed, when Mario Draghi announced on 6 September that the European Central Bank (ECB) would undertake unlimited purchases of government bonds, the continent crossed the bridge to its future.

Europe’s leaders must see that the drawbridge has been...

History has shown that those countries with a winning combination of competitiveness strengths tend to be the ones that are best prepared to ride out economic crises and provide rising and sustainable living standards to their citizens.

Five years into the most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression, then, it is dispiriting to note that short-termism and political deadlock have taken such root in national and regional discussions that competitiveness divides across the world are actually being reinforced rather than narrowing.

A country that does not...

The scale and frequency of weather shocks, combined with long-term economic forecasts of climate change effects and fossil fuel costs, are having a political as well as an economic impact. Many developing country governments are changing their approach to infrastructure and industrial planning, choosing to design more sustainable, resilient pathways to economic growth. They are developing comprehensive national investment programmes in clean energy, energy efficiency, water management, climate-resilient agriculture, smart grids and low-carbon transport systems. This strategic shift has...

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs). During the past five years, we have witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.

Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.

As of August 2011, the Community...

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs). During the past five years, we have witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.

Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.

As of August 2011, the Community...

The report Redefining the Future of Growth: The New Sustainability Champions, prepared with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), highlights innovative business practices from companies originating and operating in emerging markets. By focusing on a group of 16 exemplary companies called the New Sustainability Champions, the report shows how those businesses create unconventional and profitable solutions that positively impact economic growth and enhance overall sustainability in their regions.

Taking into account criteria covering sustainability, innovation, scalability, geography and...

The World Economic Forum convenes global leaders from business, policy-making and civil society to find creative and sustainable solutions to the challenges facing our world today. One particular societal and economic challenge is the persistent gap between women and men in their access to resources and opportunities.This gap not only undermines the quality of life of one half of the world’s population but also poses a significant risk to the long-term growth and well-being of nations: countries that do not capitalize on the full potential of...

The Indonesia Competitiveness Report 2011 is being released at the occasion of the 20th annual World Economic Forum on East Asia and at a critical juncture for Indonesia’s economic future. It is natural to predict a bright future for the country—and for the region as a whole, which is expected to contribute some 50 percent to global GDP growth in the next five years. Yet, as this Report describes, a number of challenges remain, which must be addressed in order to ensure that Indonesia sustains the...

The 2009-2010 Global Competitiveness Report is published against the backdrop of the deepest global economic slowdown in generations.What began as a financial cri- sis in a handful of industrialized economies continues to spill over into the real economy, engendering massive contractions in consumer demand, rising unemploy- ment, and mounting protectionist pressures worldwide.

This year’s Report features a total of 133 economies, thus providing the most comprehensive assessment of its kind.The Report contains a detailed profile for each of the economies featured in the study as well...

In the aftermath of the past years’ financial and economic events, one learning point is apparent: new companies from around the world are playing an increasingly important role in shaping the global economy. The World Economic Forum takes great pride in having identified this trend at an early stage and in creating the Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs) that brings together top emerging companies from around the globe.

The Forum established this Community in 2007, with the purpose of identifying those players that in addition to showing...

The Global Redesign Initiative was a global, multistakeholder dialogue on the future of international cooperation. Set up in the midst of the global financial crisis, its purpose was to stimulate thinking and debate about how the international community and its institutions and organizations in their widest sense can be adapted to contemporary challenges. The distillation of this process has helped the Forum's many communities to develop proposals that seek to highlight potential responses to the challenge of adapting to a new global business and social environment. 

The Arab World Competitiveness Review 2010 finds that the global economic crisis has further widened the competitiveness gap between the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the rest of the Arab world region. The review, published ahead of the 2010 World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa, sees Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait outperforming other economies at a similar level of development in terms of competitiveness. In the overall ranking of 139 economies, they place 17th, 21st and 35th.

United Arab Emirates is the only economy from the region that...

The World Economic Forum’s Europe 2020 Competitiveness Report is the second in a series of publications that measure Europe’s performance in becoming smart, inclusive and environmentally sustainable. It takes a global approach, assessing highly advanced countries around the world as well as the EU’s individual member states and candidate countries.

The goal of the report is to provide a platform for constructive dialogue between government, business, civil society and European institutions in order to achieve a knowledge-driven, inclusive and sustainable Europe. The report aims to...

Leaders examined regional governance and international cooperation towards trade integration, enhanced security and environmental performance. Regional leaders from different sectors also focused on specific problems affecting Latin America, which include the international community’s initiatives to rebuild Haiti and reconstruction efforts in Chile after earthquakes in both countries.

Under the theme “Reducing Barriers to Economic Growth and Job Creation”, The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 assesses 140 economies worldwide based on the extent to which they are putting in place the factors and policies to make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism sector. Read the full news release for more information.

The 2013 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) reveals that Switzerland, Germany and Austria lead the world in terms of travel and tourism competitiveness, with Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States...

This year marks the 13th edition of the Global Information Technology Report, which provides a comprehensive assessment of networked readiness, or how prepared an economy is to apply the benefits of information and communications technology (ICT) to promote economic growth and well-being. Using updated methodology that was introduced in 2012, the report ranks the progress of 148 economies in leveraging ICT to increase productivity, economic growth and the number of quality jobs. The rankings also show how far some countries have gone in bridging the digital divide – not only in terms of...

The Global Gender Gap Report 2014 benchmarks national gender gaps of 142 countries on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria.

This year is the 9th edition of the Index, allowing for time-series analysis on the changing patterns of gender equality around the world and comparisons between and within countries.

The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to...

Conservative estimates place the magnitude of corruption at as much as 5% of annual GDP in some of Asia's most dynamic economies, causing business losses in the millions, higher crime rates and severe social suffering. How can regional leaders step up the fight against corruption and create better incentives for corporate governance?

Key Points
• Corruption has been exacerbated by the increasing complexity and opacity of global supply chains
• Illicit trade is inextricably intertwined with corruption: it is enabled by corruption, and the money...

The economic crisis has led to a reassessment of the systems governing global cooperation, financial architecture and macroeconomic policies.
What are the regional implications of these global adjustments, and how can Africa's economies contribute to global growth in the next decade?
What are the key drivers of Africa's competitiveness in the long run, and how are government and business using the crisis as an opportunity to redesign a sustainable roadmap for Africa's future growth?

This session is on the record.

Key Points
• Enhancing...