FYMG 102C: Global Business, Culture, and Etiquette

Includes country information, global industry and market data. Maintained by Michigan State University.

Find economic, social, political, and demographic descriptions for every nation in the world.

The Berlin based NGO Transparency International has published the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) annually since 1995 ranking countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The CPI defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private benefit." The CPI ranked 178 countries "on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt)."

The Index of Economic Freedom is a series of 10 economic measurements created jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. Its stated objective is to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal created the Index of Economic Freedom in 1995. According to Heritage, the creators of the Index took an approach similar to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations that basic institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories—The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself categorized as one of four types of regime: “full democracies”; “flawed democracies”; “hybrid regimes”; and “authoritarian regimes”.