The Culture of The Economist. A Further Evidence of “The Economist” Index

This paper offers further evidence to “The Economist” index of economic power developed by Pujol (2003). The original index is composite by construction and it gives information about year 2000, comparing the results with year 1990. Also econometric evidence is offered. Testing the robustness of the ranking of selected countries obtained by Pujol’s index, this paper applies the same methodology to two specific years: 1995 and 2001. This paper tries to ascertain if the evolution of the ranking of countries among years 1990 and 2000 is not merely a chance. If the index is valid, it should work for any single year, reflecting the evolution of the power of each country during a chosen period of time. The number of times each country appears in tables and graphs of the different “The Economist” issues for year 1995 confirms the evolution of the index between 1990 and 2000. Data for year 2001 gives continuity and support to the ranking developed in year 2000. Then we verify that “The Economist” index as an easier and valid alternative to other traditional ways in order to reflect the relative economic and financial power of the different countries. In other words, the data analyzed from this magazine make sense, because at the end it gives the same information that the one obtained from other more traditional and sophisticated ways. In other words, that we call The cultural of The Economist works