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The Global Competitiveness Report is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. The report "assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. Therefore, the Global Competitiveness Index measures the set of institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity." It has been widely cited and used by many scholarly and peer-reviewed articles.

The Executive Opinion Survey is a survey among a representative sample of business leaders in their respective countries. Respondent numbers have increased every year and is currently just over 11,000 in 125 countries.

The report ranks the world's nations according to the Global Competitiveness Index. The report states that it is based on the latest theoretical and empirical research. It is made up of over 90 variables, of which two thirds come from the Executive Opinion Survey, and one third comes from publicly available sources such as the Unted Nations. The variables are organized into nine pillars, with each pillar representing an area considered as an important determinant of competitiveness:
 * Institutions
 * Infrastructure
 * Macroeconomy
 * Health and primary education
 * Higher education and training
 * Market efficiency
 * Technological readiness
 * Business sophistication
 * Innovation

The impact of each pillar on competitiveness varies across countries, in function of their stages of economic development. In order to take this reality into account in the calculation of the GCI, pillars are given different weights depending on the per capita income of the nation. For example, the report argues that what presently drives productivity in Sweden is necessarily different from what drives it in Ghana. Thus, the GCI separates countries into three specific stages: factor-driven, efficiency-driven, and innovation-driven, each implying a growing degree of complexity in the operation of the economy.

The pillars are therefore organized into three subindexes, each critical to a particular stage of development: a) the basic requirements subindex groups those pillars most critical for countries in the factor-driven stage (institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomy, health and primary education); b) the efficiency enhancers subindex includes those pillars critical for countries in the efficiency-driven stage (higher education and training, market efficiency, technological readiness); c) the innovation and sophistication factors subindex includes all pillars critical to countries in the innovation driven stage (business sophistication, innovation).