Country Research: Key Resources

These six reports will be useful as you investigate countries for your team projects.
The reports?provide data on key topics, some of which?will be applicable to the country assessments your team should begin working on soon.
Be sure to check out the resources listed in Session 5 Discussions for conducting country assessments.
? The Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017?(Full Data Edition).?
Geneva: World Economic Forum.?
Retrieved from ?http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2016-2017/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2016-2017_FINAL.pdf

For a one-page snapshot of each country’s economy,?
go to page 89 for Part 2 of this report (Country / Economy Profiles).
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2016. New York, NY: United Nations.?
Retrieved from?
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2016wesp_full_en.pdf
See Chapter IV (Regional developments and outlook) for expert commentary about current?economic prospects in the region/country of interest.
World Investment Report 2016: Investor Nationality: Policy Challenges. New York and Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Retrieved from?http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir2016_en.pdf
It provides an overview of recent global economic performance and short-term prospects for the world economy.?
See Chapter II for Regional Investment Trends and look up the countries you have selected.?
See the Annex Tables in this report for GDP growth rates, CPI, unemployment, and other key financial indicators for most countries.
Social Progress Index 2016??
The Social Progress Index (SPI) rates 132 countries on more than 50 indicators, including health, sanitation, shelter, personal safety, access to information, sustainability, tolerance and inclusion and access to education. SPI was created by a team led by Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School and is designed as a complement to GDP and other economic indicators. The authors of the report define Social Progress as?”the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.”??The authors explain in the SPI FAQ that “SPI measures social progress strictly using outcomes of success, not how much effort a country makes.” ?For SPI index values of various countries, go?here.
World Economic Outlook: Subdued Demand Symptoms and Remedies, Update October?2016.? Retrieved from??
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/02/pdf/text.pdf
Most useful for country research is?the statistical appendix with lots of useful country data.
Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All.? Retrieved from??
http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/WBG/DoingBusiness/Documents/Annual-Reports/English/DB17-Report.pdf
“The World Bank calculates its own score for each country, based on the “distance to frontier” (DTF). That tracks how far each country is from the best ever score for a number of different measures. Those measures include things like how long it takes to get necessary permits, how long it takes to establish a business, and how burdensome the regulatory and tax environments are. It’s one of the most well-respected indexes on economic performance in the world, and there’s fierce competition for a place in the upper ranks.”? A quote from Business Insider