Recently, the Legatum Institute released its 2011 Prosperity
Index. Unlike other measures of prosperity such as GDP, which
focus solely on measuring levels of wealth, life satisfaction,
or development, Legatum’s Prosperity Index uses a holistic
definition of prosperity, assessing countries based on 89 unique
variables related to both material wealth and quality of life.
In essence, the Prosperity Index ranks countries based on the
foundations of prosperity - factors that help drive economic
growth and produce happy citizens in any given country. Today,
110 countries are ranked by the Index. The Index itself consists
of eight sub-indexes, each of which represents a fundamental
aspect of prosperity. Of particular interest to our community is
the Governance Sub-index, which measures countries’ performance
in three areas of governance: Effective and accountable
government Fair elections and political participation Rule of
law I applaud this important distinction within the Prosperity
Index, which clearly links ec