Countries Ranked by Their Economic Complexity

In the past, the trade between nations was a much simpler matter to grasp. Commodities and a few finished goods moved between a handful of countries in a straightforward way.

Today, around 6,000 officially classified products pass through the world’s ports, and digital products and services zip across country lines creating an extra layer of difficulty in measuring economic activity.

To try to understand this enormous level of economic complexity, the team at Harvard’s Growth Lab have created the Country Complexity Ranking. Here’s a look at the top 50 countries in the ranking:

Source

Japan, Switzerland, and South Korea sit at the top of the ranking.

Czech Republic – which was recently ranked as the most attractive manufacturing destination in Europe – has a strong showing, ranking 6th in the world. The United States slipped out of the top 10 into 12th position.

The Power of Productive Knowledge

Highly ranked countries tend to have the following attributes:

• A high diversity of exported products
• Sophisticated and unique exported products (i.e. few other countries produce similar products)

In short, the ranking hinges on the concept of “productive knowledge” – or the tacit ability to produce a product.

Muhammed Yildirim, of Harvard University, has thought up a useful analogy for thinking about the role of productive knowledge in the complexity of an economy:

“Suppose that each type of productive knowledge is a letter and each product is a word composed of these letters. Like the game of Scrabble, each country holds a set of letters with plenty of copies of each letter and tries to make words out of these letters. For instance, with letters like A, C and T, one can construct words like CAT or ACT. Then our problem of measuring economic complexity resembles interpreting how many different letters there are in each country’s portfolio. Some letters, like A and E, go in many words, whereas other letters, like X and Q, are used in very few. Extending this analogy to the countries and products, only those with a larger diversity of letters will be able to make more and more unique products. On the other hand, words that require more letters will be made only in the countries that have all the requisite pieces.”

Not All Exports are Created Equal

Much like the rack of letters in a Scrabble game, the elements of every export-driven economy can be broken down and quantified. The resulting categories encompass everything from rendered pig fat to integrated circuits, each contributing to the country’s overall score.

Agricultural and extractive industries tend to score lower on the complexity scale. Machinery can be highly complex to produce and is connected to many facets of the global economy.

Visualizing this overall mix of categories can provide a unique perspective beyond big picture numbers like GDP. Below are a few real world examples of export markets on both ends of the complexity spectrum.

Japan

Since this ranking began in the mid-1990s, Japan has never been bumped from the top spot.

Due to a restricted land mass and some ingenuity, Japan has become the prototypical example of a low-ubiquity, high-sophistication export economy.

Interactive breakdown

⁨Cars and electronics are obvious standouts, but there numerous other high-value product categories in the mix as well. The country also has a wide variety of high value exports and trading partners, lowering the risk of a trade war or industry downturn crippling the country’s economy.

Australia

Many will be surprised to learn that Australia sits in the lower third of this complexity ranking.

Although Australia’s global ranking is high in a myriad of categories – household wealth per person, for example – its economic complexity score is -0.60, much lower than expected for its income level. Looking at the breakdown below, there are clues as to why this might be the case.

Interactive breakdown

Australia’s⁩ largest exports are in ⁨low⁩ complexity categories, such as minerals and agriculture. To compound matters, the country’s economy is heavily linked to China’s. To underscore this point, a recent study found that a 5% drop in China’s GDP would result in a 2.5% dip in Australia’s.

Venezuela

It’s no secret that Venezuela has seen some tough times in recent years. The chart below shows just how reliant Venezuela was on oil exports to sustain its economy.

Interactive breakdown

An over-reliance on a single export can leave a country extremely vulnerable in the event of price volatility or geopolitical events. In the case of Venezuela, three quarters of their export economy was comprised of crude oil – one of the lowest scoring product categories in the ranking.

The Rush to Diversify

A low level of economic complexity isn’t necessarily a problem. Many countries with middle-to-low scores in the ranking have great standards of living and a high level of wealth. Countries like Canada, Norway, and Australia were all well down the list.

On the other hand, some countries have made diversification a priority. SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund is partially the result of Saudi Arabia’s push to develop a diversified, knowledge-based economy. Other oil-rich nations, such as Kazakhstan, are also pushing to diversify in the face of the world’s evolving energy mix.

As world economies evolve and the shift from fossil fuels continues, we will likely see economic complexity increase across the board.

Visualizing the New Cryptocurrency Economy

Over a decade ago, the birth of Bitcoin sparked a revolution in the digital world — and just last year, the number of active cryptocurrencies jumped from roughly 1,600 to over 3,000 worldwide.

Cryptocurrencies have now evolved past simple digital currencies, offering solutions to meet the complex needs of modern financial markets.

Today’s graphic from Abra visualizes the complex, ever-evolving cryptocurrency ecosystem and its real-world applications.

Characteristics of Cryptocurrencies

Why are cryptocurrencies important for the future of digital finance?

• Borderless
  Drastically reduces fees and processing times due to a lack of cross-border restrictions
• Censorship-free
  Prevents governments or major institutions from blocking financial activities at whim
• Greater financial control
  Individuals can have total control of their funds
• Greater security
  Prevents fraudulent alterations from third parties
• Lower costs
  Lower transaction fees thanks to fewer third parties
• Greater Accessibility
  Reduces or eliminates traditional barriers to capital markets

Much like the internet has forever altered how we live and work, cryptocurrencies have the potential to change how people participate in global financial markets.

Categorizing the New Crypto Economy

Today’s cryptocurrencies go beyond replacing cash. This new token-based economy is evolving─with unique solutions emerging in finance, security, identification, social engagement, and ownership.

Cryptocurrencies are generally categorized by their primary application within the ecosystem:

• Payments
  Digital cash can be used for both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers
• Store of value
  New form of scarce native currency and a means of settlement
• Programmable money
  Borderless money that enables easy conversion between currencies
• Stablecoins
  Crypto version of fiat which is tied to the value of resources like gold or the U.S. dollar
• Privacy
  Private digital transactions, with some offering anonymity
• Digital ownership
  Digital handling, storage, and monetization of data
• Decentralized utilities
  Crypto-enabled networks, products, and services that exchange between assets
• Alternative finance
  Digital assets such as collectibles, commodities, and tokenized securities

Cryptocurrencies are adding both value and utility to the digital economy, and to the global financial market as a whole.

Applications of Cryptocurrencies

Because cryptocurrencies are programmable, customizable computer code, developers can design and adapt them for many use cases within the digital economy.

How are these various cryptocurrencies being used in everyday applications?

Current Projects

• SPEDN auto-converts crypto to fiat for merchants, reducing exchange rate risk while offering convenient customer payment options.
• Slice offers real estate investing to anyone for as low as $10,000 through fractional investment.

Near-future Projects

• CyClean plans to launch a blockchain-enabled electric vehicle (EV) fleet that mines crypto as users travel—reducing emissions and rewarding users for doing so.
• Digital construction platform Builderium connects contractors to clients around the world through blockchain, opening up a global marketplace of potential deals.

These are just a few of the ways cryptocurrencies are breaking down barriers for people and companies worldwide—allowing them to grow personal wealth and enter the global market.

The Growth of the Crypto Economy

Worldwide, the numbers show that blockchain-based technology and cryptocurrency use is growing. Blockchain wallet users rose from nearly 9 million in 2016 to over 42 million in 2019.

Developers produced a mere 100 decentralized apps (DApps) in 2015─with that number skyrocketing to over 3,100 by 2019.

Overall, cryptocurrencies are helping to create an innovative and accessible financial system around the world.

Cryptocurrency deserves an opportunity to find a sustainable future in our economy.

—Adena Friedman, President & CEO of NASDAQ

While the future of the new cryptocurrency economy is still taking shape, one thing is certain─cryptos are forever altering the way we view and measure the value of money.