Methodology: How the 2023 Best Countries Were Ranked

Behind a country’s wealth and success are the policies that create possibilities, the people that drive the effort and the history that shapes the environment and perspective.

Globalization has expanded a country’s presence beyond its physical borders, and the U.S. News Best Countries rankings – now in their eighth year – seek to examine a nation’s worth beyond hard metrics.

The rankings project is based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics – impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment, and directly affect national economies. The 2023 analysis covers perceptions of 87 nations.

In consultation with U.S. News & World Report, the study and model used to score and rank countries were developed by global marketing and communications services company WPP and its proprietary BAV brand analytics tool, and by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, specifically professor David Reibstein.

A set of 73 country attributes – terms that can be used to describe a country and that are also relevant to the success of a modern nation – were identified. Various attributes and nations were presented in a survey of more than 17,000 people from across the globe from March 17 to June 12. Participants assessed whether they associated an attribute with a nation.

Each country was scored on each of the 73 country attributes based on a collection of individual survey responses. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic in relation to the average, the higher that country’s attribute score, and vice versa. These scores were transformed into a scale that could be compared across the board.

To determine the weight each subranking score had in the overall Best Countries score, most were correlated to 2022 gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita – a measure of inclusive prosperity comparable across countries – as reported by the World Bank. Subrankings that demonstrated a stronger relationship with the wealth category were weighted more heavily, and all weights were standardized to total 100.

The Movers subranking represents a version of the BAV tool’s BrandAsset Valuator Model of Brand Building, a metric that is predictive of a country’s future growth in terms of gross domestic product at purchasing power parity. It was correlated to GDP-PPP for 2027, as projected by the International Monetary Fund.

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall rankings score and the country attributes factored into each subranking are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights differ slightly from previous years, as they are tied to more recent gross domestic product data. They may not add up precisely to 100 due to rounding.

Entrepreneurship (14.13%): connected to the rest of the world, educated population, entrepreneurial, innovative, provides easy access to capital, skilled labor force, technological expertise, transparent business practices, well-developed infrastructure, well-developed digital infrastructure, well-developed legal framework.

Quality of Life (14.12%): a good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system.

Agility (14.02%): adaptable, dynamic, modern, progressive, responsive.

Social Purpose (12.83%): cares about human rights, cares about the environment, gender equality, religious freedom, respects property rights, trustworthy, well-distributed political power, racial equity, cares about animal rights, committed to climate goals, committed to social justice.

Movers (11.54%): different, distinctive, dynamic, unique.

Cultural Influence (10.44%): culturally significant in terms of entertainment, fashionable, happy, has an influential culture, has strong consumer brands, modern, prestigious, trendy.

Open for Business (9.43%): cheap manufacturing costs, favorable tax environment, bureaucratic, corrupt, transparent government practices.

Adventure (5.37%): friendly, fun, good for tourism, pleasant climate, scenic, sexy.

Power (5.00%): a leader, economically influential, has strong exports, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military.

Heritage (3.13%): culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions, many geographical attractions.

To arrive at a country’s ranking, we first calculated its standardized scores for each of the above country attributes. Each country received 10 subranking scores by averaging its standardized scores for the country attributes grouped into that subranking. A country’s overall score reflects the weighted sum of its subranking scores. The subranking and overall scores were rescaled so that the top country in each subcategory received a value of 100, and others were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Countries were ranked in descending order of their scores.

Choosing Survey Participants

To understand how countries are perceived, we endeavored to survey engaged citizens who are broadly representative of the global population, with an emphasis on those who would deem the topic and findings most relevant to their lives.

Self-identification in demographic questions distinguished respondents into three defined groups: informed elites, meaning college-educated individuals who consider themselves middle-class or higher and who read or watch the news at least four days a week; business decision-makers, meaning senior leaders in an organization or small-business owners who employ others; and general public, meaning adults at least 18 years old who were nationally representative of their country in terms of age and gender.

Individuals who were likely to fit these descriptions were targeted and sent the link to an online survey powered by the Kantar Profiles Audience Network. A total of 17,195 individuals from 36 countries in regions spanning the globe – the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East – were surveyed. Of the respondents, 8,267 were informed elites, 4,622 were business decision-makers and 7,402 were considered general public. Some respondents were considered both informed elites and business decision-makers.

Regardless of demographics or participant type, each individual’s responses weighed equally in the results.

Data Source: About the Survey

Survey participants were given a random subset of countries and country attributes to consider. The combinations were presented in a grid form where participants were prompted to associate countries with various characteristics. If a participant indicated they had not heard of a country, it was removed from their survey.

Each participant considered about half of the country attributes for roughly a third of the countries. The more times an attribute-country pair was checked off, the higher the attribute score was for that country.

In addition to considering countries in terms of attributes, each survey participant was asked to respond to a set of questions gauging perceptions of the state of the world today on a variety of topics, including world events, the economy, the environment, leadership and social issues.

A set of standard demographic questions helped to screen for global diversity and representation among participant groups.

Choosing the Countries to Rank

We narrowed the world’s nations down to a statistically manageable group by comparing the performance of countries in a number of key business, economic and quality-of-life indicators.

The 87 countries in the 2023 Best Countries rankings had to meet four benchmark criteria to be included in the study:

Countries that did not reach all four of these benchmarks and those that did not report these statistics were not included. Reflective of global trends captured in the benchmark data, two countries that were ranked last year failed to meet all four benchmarks this year and have therefore dropped out of the rankings: Paraguay and Zambia. Three countries are making their first appearance in the Best Countries rankings in 2023: Cyprus, Honduras and Zimbabwe. One country has been added back into the analysis: El Salvador.

Collectively, the 87 countries in the report account for about 95% of global gross domestic product and represent nearly 80% of the world’s population. They span the globe, representing Africa, Asia, Central America, Eurasia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania and South America.

Best Countries first launched in 2016 based on a model of a country’s brand evaluation created by former BAV Consulting CEO John Gerzema and University of Pennsylvania professor David Reibstein, tested by former BAV Group Senior Vice President Anna Blender and validated by WPP senior advisor David Sable.

What’s different about this year’s Best Countries report?

The Best Countries rankings are based largely on perception, and countries received their overall score and rank based on the same set of attributes as last year. However, the four benchmarks used to determine the set of countries that are assessed each year are driven by hard data. Incorporating newly available data for these benchmarks – gross domestic product, foreign direct investment inflows, international tourism receipts or tourism arrivals, and the U.N.’s Human Development Index – can change the set of countries that are included in the analysis annually. This year, three new countries were added to the analysis, one country returned, and two countries included in last year’s rankings did not make the cut.

Some of the country attributes reflect more unfavorable aspects of a country. Could high scores on these attributes help raise a country’s score or rank?

Scores for the negative country attributes – bureaucratic and corrupt – were inverted when calculated into the subranking and overall scores. In this way, the countries that were the most closely associated with these attributes performed worse.

No, scores were calculated in relation to each other in a way that did not allow for ties.

Could survey participants answer about their country of residence or citizenship?

Yes. Survey participants could answer about any country that was randomly assigned to them as long as they indicated that they were familiar with that country.

The survey refers to 73 country attributes, but there are not that many listed alongside the subrankings categories.

Five country attributes were not included in any of the subrankings and therefore do not factor into the overall Best Countries scores or rankings. This data may be used in additional analyses.

This methodology mentions a group of 87 countries and a group of 36 countries. What’s the difference?

A total of 87 countries were reviewed by survey respondents to create these rankings. People from 36 countries answered the survey. Those 36 countries were all ranked, but the survey covered more countries than the number of countries in which it was fielded.

Has the Russia-Ukraine war affected survey administration?

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the survey for the 2022 rankings was not fielded in Russia for business reasons, and was newly fielded in Romania to maintain regional balance. The same approach was followed for the 2023 rankings.

Where can I learn more about the study and the model?