Switzerland is no longer the world’s most competitive economy, according to the latest World Competitiveness Ranking by the IMD business school in Lausanne. The list was topped by Denmark for the first time in the ranking’s 34-year history.

IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2022

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking measures 63 economies around the world and ranks them by how factors such as government, taxation, productivity and business infrastructure impact the competitiveness of each nation’s economy. The 2022 ranking also took into special consideration how each nation is committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and how their economic strength allows them to do so.

IMD analysed 163 pieces of hard data to and combined it with questionnaires filled out by entrepreneurs, chief executives and business partners. All data was then fed into four different categories to create the ranking. These are:

• Economic performance
• Government efficiency
• Business efficiency
• Infrastructure

In their latest report, IMD warned that inflationary pressures, concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and the widening wealth gap between rich and poor were having a large impact on business. While the company said that the COVID pandemic was “over” in an economic sense, the fallout from the pandemic has had a big impact on each nation's score.

Switzerland no longer the most competitive economy

For Switzerland, high prices and declining economic performance during the pandemic meant the country slipped from first to second in the latest ranking. However, the alpine nation still did very well in several categories, being ranked as best in government efficiency and infrastructure, and fourth-best in business efficiency.

For the first time in 34 years, Denmark was awarded the top spot for 2022. The IMD praised the Nordic nation for its large improvements in government efficiency, productivity and management practices. Research specialist Marco Pistis said, “Denmark's economic performance has risen sharply, and this is driven by increases in investment flows in the country, a contained rise in prices compared to other developed economies and the strengthening of public finances with a reduction in public debt and government deficit.”

The biggest improvement in this year's ranking was Croatia, which rose by 18 places in the economic performance category. Others, like Switzerland and the Netherlands, struggled to maintain their performance from last year, with the lowland nation dropping two places to sixth overall. The most uncompetitive economy in the world was found to be Venezuela.

Most competitive economies in the world in 2022 revealed

According to the IMD, the 10 countries with the most competitive economies in the world are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Singapore
4. Sweden
5. Hong Kong
6. The Netherlands
7. Taiwan
8. Finland
9. Norway
10. United States of America

For more information on methodology, and to see how other nations did in the ranking, please visit the IMD website.