South Korea is still the world’s most innovative economy ,South Korea topped the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index list for the second year in a row, followed by Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Singapore, Japan, Denmark, the United States and Israel.
South Korea with a score of 89.00 topped the world in R&D intensity, manufacturing value-added (the net output of the manufacturing sector) – as a percentage of GDP and per capita – and patent activity or the number of resident patent filings per million population and filings per $100 billion GDP. It ranked in the top five in high-tech density– the number of domestically domiciled hi-tech public companies – , tertiary efficiency or the total enrollment in tertiary education and research concentration. However, its dismal 32nd rank in productivity among all innovative economies, has narrowed its lead.
Sweden moved up one spot from 2016 to second place despite the current government’s less business-friendly policies including potentially crippling labor taxes. Fresh ideas tend to pay off big in Sweden, even as the current government is less business-friendly and has imposed labor taxes that could crimp business investment, said Magnus Henrekson, director of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, a private foundation in Stockholm. The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said.
Russia was the most notable loser in the index and fell 14 spots from last year to No. 26. The country suffered from economic sanctions and low energy prices. Israel was the lone country to move into a top 10 spot this year, while France was the lone country to lose its position as one of the top 10 most innovative economies.
The GII remains relatively stable at the top, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Finland are the world’s five most innovative nations, according to the Global Innovation Index 2016. “Yet among the top ranked 25 innovation nations this year are not only economies from Northern America (such as Canada and the USA) and Europe (such as Germany, Switzerland, and the UK) but also from South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania (such as Australia, Japan, Korea, and Singapore) and Western Asia (Israel).”
The Global Innovation Index (GII) has been ranking world economies since 2007 according to their innovation capabilities and results using approximately 80 indicators that include measures of human capital development and research, development funding, university performance, and international dimensions of patent applications, among a host of other important parameters.
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