National Competitiveness under the microscope

Interesting yearly must-read for all smart regulators, just published, the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness survey. For highlights of the 2011-2012 edition, see press release. Main news:

• Switzerland, Singapore and Sweden top the ranking
• The US continues the decline it began three years ago, falling one more place to fifth position
• Emerging economies continue to close the competitiveness gap with OECD economies

“The results show that while competitiveness in advanced economies has stagnated over the past seven years, in many emerging markets it has improved, placing their growth on a more stable footing and mirroring the shift in economic activity from advanced to emerging economies.
The People’s Republic of China (26th) continues to lead the way among large developing economies, improving by one more place and solidifying its position among the top 30. Among the four other BRICS economies, South Africa (50th) and Brazil (53rd) move upwards while India (56th) and Russia (66th) experience small declines. Several Asian economies perform strongly, with Japan (9th) and Hong Kong SAR (11th) also in the top 20.”
The ranking provides a global view centered on outcomes which complements the Doing Business index, which is more focused on regulatory procedures and pays great attention to reforms. Each year, the GCR explores one of the conceptual issues underpinning the study of competitiveness: debt (2012), fiscal policy (2011), etc and gives detailed methodological clarifications.
2- page country reports place each national economy on the development ladder which comprises 3 stages (factor based, efficiency-driven, innovative), list the relative importance of “problematic factors for doing business” and present the scores in each of the 12 “pillars” of competitiveness in a easy to read diamond.