Rankings of countries have become of great interest to the business community, governments and academics. They provide single and composite indicators on the competitiveness and growth prospects of countries. This article presents the rankings of the World Economic Forum, the International Institute for Management Development, the Fraser Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Bertelsmann Foundation. We conclude that although the rankings provide useful information their methodology is in general rudimentary and calls for further improvement. Government policy should be cautious when drawing conclusions from such rankings. Copyright 2008 die Autoren Journal compilation 2008, Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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