New Zealand Ranked Second Most Prosperous

New Zealand has been ranked second in the Legatum Institute’s 12th annual global Prosperity Index, which lists the world’s 37 richest, healthiest, happiest, and most prosperous nations. Business Insider Australia reports. Norway holds the top spot in the ranking.

“In all, Legatum looks at more than 100 variables, including traditional indicators like per capita gross domestic product” as well as some “more esoteric data such as the number of secure internet servers a country has.” “The variables are then split into nine subindexes including economic quality, business environment and personal freedom.

“In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, New Zealand performs best on Social Capital and Personal Freedom and scores lowest on the Safety & Security pillar. The biggest positive change, compared to last year, came in Health increasing by 1 place, whereas they dropped 3 places on Economic Quality,” as reported in the index.

The report notes in its key findings that “global prosperity continues to rise and is at its highest ever point. “Since last year 95 countries improved their score. However, this improvement is not shared equally. The gap between the largest and smallest scores has been growing steadily since 2013, and this year the gap is the largest it has ever been.”

These are the Top Ten Nations according to the index:

1. Norway
2. New Zealand
3. Finland
4. Switzerland
5. Denmark
6. Sweden
7. United Kingdom
8. Canada
9. Netherlands
10. Ireland

Article Source: Business Insider Australia, Will Martin, November 28, 2018
Image Source: Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash