Poland ranked 27th in The Wealth of Nations Index

The Warsaw Enterprise Institute has published a report entitled “The  Wealth of Nations Index. Edition 2024” (WNI). For the third time, all OECD and European Union countries were  included in the survey. In total 38 economies were analysed.

This year’s edition of the report and the indicators discussed in it refer to the situation from the beginning of 2023. So this is a period when one crisis related to the Coronavirus Pandemic replaced another one related to the war in Ukraine, which had an impact on the countries socio-economic problems.

Ranking results

The first place in the WNI ranking went to Ireland (190.7 points), followed by Switzerland (134.0 points). Norway (116.4 points) moved up to 3rd place, pushing the United States off the podium (109.6 points).

If, following the authors of the report, we ignore Ireland (specific structure of the economy and methodology of calculating GDP), the best result in the European Union goes to Denmark, which scored 103.8 points. Germany  recorded a decline for the second year in a row, currently by 0.4 points. Our western neighbour is still stuck in the crisis that began in 2020.

Polish position in the WNI ranking

Poland, with 68.6 points, was ranked 27th in the WNI ranking (18th among European Union countries), thus maintaining its position from last year. The gap between the Polish economy and that of Portugal and Estonia has decreased. These countries scored 71.1 and 72.9 points, respectively.

However, Poland has advanced in several subcategories of the public spending quality index. The biggest change, by as many as 9 places from 25th to 16th position, took place in the defence category. It also gained in the health category, moving up from 33rd to 30th place, and in the education category, moving up 5 positions to 13th place.

A decrease was recorded in infrastructure expenditure – 33rd place compared to 29th a year earlier. When it comes to the quality of spending public money, Poland is among the countries that have achieved average efficiency.

About the index

The Wealth of  Nations Index measures the economic benefits per year per citizen in the European Union and OECD countries. WNI is the sum of the public expenditure component and the private expenditure component.

WNI assesses the benefits of public expenditure through the public expenditure quality index in eight areas – sub-categories. These are as follows:

• National Defence
• Internal security
• Infrastructure and public transport
• State of the environment
• Health
• Primary and secondary education
• Higher education
• Freedom of expression, association and information

The next year’s edition of WNI will show how the surveyed countries function after two years of war in Ukraine. The research will also show whether countries have overcome a number of challenges initiated by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Source: Wealth of Nations Index report. Edition 2024, Warsaw Enterprise Institute, Warsaw 2024