The World Economic Forum (WEF) annually publishes The Global Competitiveness Report which assesses the economic competitiveness of countries ranks them compared to 140 national economies.  The WEF relies on data sourced from international organizations and from its own annual Executive Opinion Survey. The GCI survey captures information on a broad range of factors that are critical for a country’s competitiveness and sustainable development, and for which data sources are scarce or nonexistent.  The data are used in the calculation of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI).

For 2013-2014 the top 20 countries according to the GCI are

1. Switzerland 5.67
2. Singapore 5.61
3. Finland 5.54
4. Germany 5.51
5. United States 5.48
6. Sweden 5.48
7. Hong Kong SAR 5.47
8. Netherlands 5.42
9. Japan 5.40
10. United Kingdom 5.37
11. Norway 5.33
12. Taiwan, China 5.29
13. Qatar 5.24
14. Canada 5.20
15. Denmark 5.18
16. Austria 5.15
17. Belgium 5.13
18. New Zealand 5.11
19. United Arab Emirates 5.11
20. Saudi Arabia 5.10

The factors used in computing the GCI include basic requirements (institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary educcation), higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is further broken down into

A. Transport infrastructure

• Quality of overall infrastructure
• Quality of roads
• Quality of railroad infrastructure e
• Quality of port infrastructure
• Quality of air transport infrastructure
• Available airline seat kilometers

B. Electricity and telephony infrastructure

• Quality of electricity supply
• Mobile telephone subscriptions
• Fixed telephone lines

It is interesting to compare the Unites States’ infrastructure to that of other countries.

United States: Infrastructure…………………………… score (rank)

Quality of overall infrastructure …………………………. 5.7 (19)
Quality of roads ………………………………………………… 5.7 (18)
Quality of railroad infrastructure ……………………….. 4.9 (17)
Quality of port infrastructure ……………………………… 5.7 (16)
Quality of air transport infrastructure…………………. 5.9 (18)
Available airline seat km/week, millions* … 32,852.2  (1)
Quality of electricity supply ………………………………… 6.2 (30)
Mobile telephone subscriptions/100 pop.* …….. 98.2 (95)
Fixed telephone lines/100 pop.* …………………….. 44.0 (18)

The US leads in airline seats availability, but in all other areas of infrastructure does not make the top decile among 140 nations.

For comparison Germany does make the top decile for most of these criteria.  The exceptions being electric power (Germany  is in the midst of transitioning from a significant nuclear capacity to a greater renewable capacity) and mobile phones.

Germany: Infrastructure………………………………. score (rank)

Quality of overall infrastructure ………………………… 6.2 (10)
Quality of roads ……………………………………………….. 6.0 (11)
Quality of railroad infrastructure ………………………. 5.7 (7)
Quality of port infrastructure …………………………….. 5.8 (9)
Quality of air transport infrastructure………………… 6.1 (8)
Available airline seat km/week, millions* …..4,663.0 (5)
Quality of electricity supply ………………………………. 6.1 (32)
Mobile telephone subscriptions/100 pop.* …. 131.3 (39)
Fixed telephone lines/100 pop.* ……………………. 61.8 (4)