Word: indexable
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...development race. The Global Competitiveness Report tallies 113 factors that contribute to an economy's competitiveness--a buzzword that roughly boils down to how well a country is positioned to squeeze efficiency out of its businesses and attract companies and investment from abroad. Components of the resulting Global Competitiveness Index range from the quality of a nation's roads to the independence of its judiciary to the incidence of tuberculosis to how easy it is to hire an engineer. Parts of the index are culled from official data; many others are drawn from a survey of 11,000 international business...
...Global Competitiveness Index is widely watched by countries that want to ferret out weak spots and by companies deciding where to invest. "We're taking the complexity of the world economy and simplifying it," says Jennifer Blanke, a senior economist at the WEF, "so that business and government can say, 'These are the obstacles going forward. What can we do to overcome them?'" In the overall ranking, the U.S. finishes first (same as last year) out of 131 countries, thanks in part to top scores in venture-capital availability (plentiful), domestic-market size (huge) and cost of firing workers...
...moderately taxed countries, are at the top of the list, but so are Denmark, Sweden and Finland, where taxes are sky high. "There's always the debate about more government, less government, more taxes, less taxes," says Xavier Sala-i-Martin, the Columbia University economist who designed the index. "This suggests that is the wrong debate. We should be talking about what the government does and not its size...
...declining revenue growth as patents on their major drugs expire, Novartis is poised for several years of steady double-digit expansion. This year its shares in the U.S. are up about 10%--the best performance among major drug companies--even as the Morgan Stanley Capital USA Health Care Index, a basket of big drug stocks, has fallen about 25%. Novartis is the 17th most valuable company in the world, up from 27th last year...
...easy as adjusting eating and exercising habits, according to a study released Wednesday by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers found that specific dietary patterns, vigorous physical activity, and maintaining a healthy body mass index can lead to a substantial decrease in the rate of infertility due to ovulatory disorders. According to Jorge E. Chavarro, co-author of the report and research fellow at HSPH, the specific dietary patterns include taking multivitamins containing folic acid and iron, avoiding trans fats, and choosing fish, eggs, and whole grains...