The world’s most innovative economies
The biggest loser in this year's Bloomberg Innovation Index was Russia, plunging 14 spots to No. 26, almost five times the size of the next-largest drop in the rankings
South Korea remained the big winner in the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index, topping the charts in research and development (R&D) intensity, value-added manufacturing and patent activity and with top-five rankings in high-tech density, higher education and researcher concentration.
Scant progress in improving its productivity score—now No. 32 in the world—explains why the country’s lead narrowed in the past year.
Sweden climbed to No. 2 and Finland cracked into the top five in the index, which scores economies using factors including R&D spending and the concentration of high-tech public companies.
Silver medal winner Sweden owes most of its rise to improvement in the manufacturing value-added metric, while Nordic neighbour Finland jumped two spots in large part because of the rise of high-tech firms in the country.
The biggest loser in this year’s Bloomberg Innovation Index was Russia, plunging 14 spots to No. 26, almost five times the size of the next-largest drop in the rankings. Battered by sanctions and the after-effects of a couple years of subdued energy prices, Russia’s solid scores last year in manufacturing and productivity were destroyed in this year’s tally.
Japan, where the yen is still struggling to recover from an almost two-year slide, dropped the most of any economy in the top 25, moving to No. 7 from No. 4 as it lost its best-in-world distinction for patent activity. Croatia also slipped three spots, to No. 41 from No. 38.
The US fell one spot to No. 9 while Israel moved up one notch to No. 10. China held its title as the strongest-ranked emerging market, at No. 21, as it improved its tertiary education score while its high-tech concentration wavered.
The ranking began with over 200 economies, from which those that didn’t report data for at least six of seven categories measured were eliminated, trimming the list to 78. Bloomberg released overall and category scores for the top 50 innovative economies. Bloomberg
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