United States Ranks Seventh in Most Globalized Nations

A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy magazine has released this year's rankings of the most globalized countries, which is a study of 12 key factors across the four categories of economic integration, technological connectivity, personal contact across borders and political engagement. Singapore leads the list for the second year in a row, and the US has fallen four places to seventh overall. The data used in the ranking is from 2005 and ranks 72 nations.

The Globalization Index is published in the current issue of Foreign Policy and examines how nations areconnected to other nations around the world. The Index accounts for nearly 90 percent of the world's population. The 2007 Index added ten nations and three of those have placed in the top ten.

Hong Kong debuts at number two on the Index, followed by other newcomers, Jordan at number nine and Estonia at ten. Rounding out the top ten are the Netherlands at number three; Switzerland, Ireland, and Denmark at four, five and six. Canada took the number eight spot.

The United States placed just above Algeria in second to last place for economic measures, due to the US's slow growth in trade and decreased investment in the US by foreign companies. Luckily, the US's technological connectivity is very highly ranked, and makes up for the dismal placing in economic measures. The technology numbers account for nearly 75% of the total US score. The score for the US's personal contact is not much better than the economic score, according to the Index.

The high placing newcomers gain most of their high scores from economic measures and personal contact. Hong Kong gets more than half of its very high score from economic measures, whereas very little points for political engagement. Estonia received a bit less than half of its total score from economic integration, with the rest of its score coming equally from personal contact, technology connectivity, and political engagement. Jordan however gets most of its score from political engagement as the small country offers large numbers of troops as UN peacekeepers.

Vietnam and Belgium are other first year nations in the Globalization Index. Belgium was ranked 15, for high scores in all four categories. Vietnam placed 48^th, for high trade scores in exporting to the global supply.

Both China and India did not place in the top half. India received little points for technological connectivity as only about five percent of Indians has access to the Internet. China fell from 51 to 66 this year, due to a slowing trade in exports and little international political involvement.

A.T. Kearney, a strategic management consulting group, has been publishing the Globalization Index for the last seven years. Foreign Policy is published by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace in Washington, D.C.

Source: AT Kearney, Foreign Policy