The Warsaw Enterprise Institute has published the 4th edition of the Wealth of Nations Index, a unique Index that, in addition to GDP, also measures the quality of public spending. Countries belonging to the European Union and OECD are taken into account. The podium places are occupied by Ireland, Switzerland and Norway, which managed to overtake the United States this year. Poland ranks only 27th out of 38 economies and 18th in the EU. This is a decent, but not satisfactory, result.
Typically, when we talk about the development of countries, we focus on Gross National Product. Those who are not satisfied with this and believe that development is not only about growth, point to other indices, such as the Human Development Index or The World Happiness Report. The indicator developed for the Warsaw Enterprise Institute by economist Karol Zdybel presents a broad understanding of the concept of development. On the one hand, attention is paid to the dynamics of private spending per capita, and on the other hand, to the quality of public spending in 8 categories (defense, security, infrastructure, higher education, health care, environment), and they are also examined through the level of freedom of assembly, which is a litmus test. democracy. The assessment of the quality of public spending is the result of a synthesis of the results of available component indices, e.g. Legatum Prosperity Index or Global Peace Index.
This year’s WBN presents the situation of crisis after crisis – socio-economic problems related to the coronavirus epidemic have been replaced by the war-related crisis since 2022.
According to the report, the world is still poorer than before the pandemic. Most of the surveyed countries recorded an increase in WBN indications compared to the previous year, when they were just recovering from the depths of the COVID-19 epidemic, but the results for 2019 were not clearly exceeded.
Ireland wins, and the USA loses the podium to Norway, mainly due to a drop in the subcategory regarding the quality of public spending in America (by as many as 9 places).
The authors of the report also point out that none of the countries made a big leap forward, and the largest decline was recorded by France – from 16th to 19th position. Poland maintains 27th position compared to the previous edition of WBN. If we exclude non-EU economies, Poland is in 18th place in the overall ranking.
“We take better care of defense in Poland than we do about infrastructure. In the subcategory on defense spending, Poland advanced by 9 points – to 16th place, but in infrastructure spending it dropped by 4 – to 33rd place.
– we read.
– May 1 marks 20 years since Poland joined the European Union. If effective reforms had been carried out early enough in expenditure areas such as education and health, involving decentralization and the introduction of a competition mechanism, we would have been ranked higher. Currently, we are at a key historical moment which, paradoxically, opens up opportunities for Poland to make up for its neglect and advance to the WBN. Crises are accumulating and intersecting on various levels – from demography to trade security. At the same time, the experiences of the pandemic and war have made societies realize that the lack of bold reforms has left them fragile and devoid of resilience. A brave reformer will not encounter as much social resistance as he would have encountered in times of relative prosperity – argue the authors of the report, the full text of which can be found HERE.
Source: WEI
Photo: photo: Robert Fotograf/pixabay.com/CC creative commons
