World Indices

[threemonkeys]

There are lots of global indices measuring all sorts of stuff. Local media has been smugly reporting the Global Peace Index and I see a number of people have been noting it on their blogs. These are the top 5 countries according to that index.

Global Peace Index
1 New Zealand
2 Iceland
3 Japan
4 Austria
5 Norway

But it did get me wondering about our place in the world, so a bit of wikipedia mining turned up a bunch of other indices. Not even close to a full set, just a few that caught my eye.


Corruption Perception Index - this is how people feel about the corruptness of their society. The argument is that perception is actually more reliable as an indicator than derived numbers like criminal convictions because the nature of corruption distorts such measures.
1 New Zealand
2 Denmark
3= Singapore
3= Sweden
5 Switzerland

Gender Gap Index - this is a measure of how well women are represented in positions of power. No surprises here.
1 Iceland
2 Finland
3 Norway
4 Sweden
5 New Zealand

Global Wealth Index - this one seems to look at a mixture of GDP, health care and some other possession related stuff. NZ is surprisingly high.
1= Norway
1= Sweden
1= United States
4 Austria
5 Canada
6 New Zealand

GDP per Head - this one is why I'm surprised the above value was so high.
1 Luxembourg
2 Norway
3 Qatar
4 Switzerland
5 Denmark
27 New Zealand

Human Development Index - Similar to the wealth index but slanted towards education and life expectancy.
1 Norway
2 Australia
3 Iceland
4 Canada
5 Ireland
20 New Zealand

Press Freedom Index - I was looking for a general freedom of action index but couldn't find one. Press freedon is not a bad indicator though.
1= Denmark
1= Finland
1= Ireland
1= Norway
1= Sweden
13= New Zealand

Index of Economic Freedom - economic freedom is not really anything like personal freedom of course, but interesting.
1 Hong Kong
2 Singapore
3 Australia
4 New Zealand
5 Ireland

Happy Planet Index - this one is just strange. It is based on the notion that money does not make people happy (which is fair enough) but then it tries to work out happiness based on other factors. Actually, I get Vanuatu and Costa Rica - but Colombia - nah.
1 Vanuatu
2 Colombia
3 Costa Rica
4 Dominica
5 Panama
94 New Zealand

This was purely an exercise in curiosity - I'm not going anywhere.