Prosperity Index

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
18 Jan 2009

Timing is everything, but sometimes bad timing just can't be helped.  So as the global financial crisis was starting to take hold late last year, you probably missed the news that Australia was ranked the most prosperous country in the world in 2008.

This is the assessment of the Legatum Institute? annual Prosperity Index, which was released last October.  Legatum is an independent think tank associated with the Legatum Group, a private investment organisation based in Dubai.

Legatum? Prosperity Index ranked 104 countries on economic competitiveness and ?omparative liveability?  While economic competitiveness compares economic performance, comparative liveability measures the factors which make for happiness and well-being.

So what put Australia at the top of the Index?  On the economic side, Legatum lists high levels of entrepreneurship, capital investment and innovation; deregulated labour and financial markets; and controlled public spending.  Importantly in the light of the financial crisis, Australia scored ?xtremely highly?on the quality of financial and economic regulations.

On liveability, Australia scored high results on incomes, health, life-expectancy, freedom, equality of opportunity, and the environment.  High levels of charitable giving, effective and incorrupt government, and one of the highest sports participation rates in the world also boosted the overall quality of life score.

Interestingly, the Index put average leisure time in Australia at over seven hours a day ?which may come as a surprise to many busy Australians.  One of the few ?xceptionally weak?scores Australia received on the 44 indicators used was on religious belief.

In ranking Australia number one the Index acknowledged that all is not rosy.  In particular it highlighted significant disparities between Australia? overall result and the very different situation which faces the Indigenous population.

Austria and Finland tied for second place in this year? Index, followed by Germany, Singapore, the US, Switzerland and Hong Kong.  New Zealand came in at ninth place, the UK at fourteenth, and Ireland completed the top twenty on the list.

Nine of the ten countries at the bottom of the list came from Africa, including Sudan, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, came in last of all.

The ambition of the Prosperity Index is to produce what it calls ? holistic view of prosperity?which goes beyond economic indicators and includes social capital, health, the environment, freedom, and overall quality of life.

The basic idea is made brilliantly clear by a quote from Robert Kennedy at the beginning of the report.  As Kennedy observed, indicators like Gross National Product do not measure things like the quality of education, ?he strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials?  In short, economic indicators measure everything ?xcept that which makes life worthwhile?

Good words to keep in mind as we focus on recovering and protecting prosperity in the years ahead.