U.S. Ranking in Global Competitiveness Report

Annually, the World Economic Forum presents its Global Competitiveness Report to highlight strengths and weaknesses of countries, their overall business climate, and priorities for policy change. The 2013-2014 report ranked the U.S. as follows:

• Number 5 overall out of 148 countries.
• #35 in institutions
• #15 in infrastructure
• #117 in macroeconomic environment
• #34 in health and primary education
• #7 in higher education and training
• #20 in goods market efficiency
• #4 in labor market efficiency
• #10 in financial market development
• #15 in technological readiness
• #1 in market size
• #6 in business sophistication
• #7 in innovation

The report listed the following as the top 6 most problematic factors for doing business in the U.S.:

• Tax regulations,
• Tax rates,
• Inefficient government bureaucracy,
• Access to financing,
• Restrictive labor regulations,
• and Inadequately educated workforce.

Furthermore, the report mentioned the following:

• The “business community continues to be rather critical, with trust in politicians still somewhat weak (50th), concerns about the government’s ability to maintain arms-length relationships with the private sector (54th), and a general perception that the government spends its resources relatively wastefully (76th).”
• “The country’s social sustainability score is somewhat lower than that of other advanced economies because of high income inequality and relatively high youth unemployment (17.3 percent).”
• “In terms of environmental sustainability, the below-par performance of the United States is the consequence of several factors that include the country’s lack of commitment to joining international treaties, its limited political will to firmly improve on critical environmental issues, the high pressure on its water resources for agriculture, its relatively high CO2 emissions, and limited protected land area.”

To read the entire report, click on The Global Competitiveness Report 2013 – 2014.

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The 2008-2009 report ranked the U.S. as follows:

• The US was #1 in overall global competitiveness.
• The US was #66 in macroeconomic stability.
• The US was #34 in health and primary education.

The top 4 most problematic factors for doing business were:

• tax rates,
• tax regulations,
• inefficient government bureaucracy,
• and, inadequately educated workforce.

To read the entire report, click on The Global Competitiveness Network or click on The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.

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