IMD World Competitiveness Booklet 2023

Figure 2: Is your company willing to sacrifice profit and growth at the expense of environmental sustainability and social responsibility (in the event it comes down to a choice between the two)? (IMD Executive Opinion Survey, 2023)

NOTE: The IMD Executive Opinion survey was run between 17 February-23 May 2023, and was based on a sample of 4,060 C-level and mid-level managers from the 64 countries included in the study.

adequate financing to companies (sixth from first), worker motivation (15 th from seventh), women on boards (11 th from seventh), and the effectiveness of primary and secondary education (23 rd from 13 th ). Several other declines are in indicators related to government efficiency including transparency (eighth from third), state ownership of enterprises (10 th from fifth), the effectiveness of bureaucracy (11 th from sixth), the adaptability of government policy (22 nd from 13 th ), and the effective ness of immigrations laws (34 th from 11 th ). The USA places ninth in the overall ranking. This slight increase is mainly due to a robust performance in the economic performance factor in which it ranks second. In the other competitiveness factors, the USA ranks 14 th in business efficiency and sixth in infrastructure. Despite a slight improvement, it remains relatively low in the government efficiency factor (25 th ). At the sub-factor level, the USA continues to perform strongly in the domestic economy (fifth), international investment (first), finance (first), and

scientific infrastructure (first). Never theless, there are some sub-factors in which the country drops from already relatively low positions such as in attitudes and values (30 th from 26 th ) and societal framework (41 st from 40 th ). The country improves its position in a number of indicators, including access to financial services – gender ratio (third), exports of goods – growth (22 nd ), and the economic impact of pollution problems (22 nd ). It also progresses in areas such as the growth of exports of commercial services (32 nd ), terms of trade index (20 th ), direct investment stocks inward as a percentage of GDP (22 nd ), labor force growth (29 th ), exchange rate stability (21 st ), and current account balance (46 th ). The USA declines in areas such as equal opportunity (32 nd from 21 st ), export concen tration by-product (11 th from sixth), female labor force (21 st from 22 nd ), and social cohesion (44 th from 39 th ). It also falls in the rankings for indicators such as freedom of the press (30 th from 23 rd ), tax evasion (28 th from 20 th ), foreign investors (38 th from

27