Macro Rankings - Edunomix

WHAT IS THE GES?

The Global Edunomix Survey is an initiative designed to measure and assess the intersection between education, economics and investment. This research is specifically directed toward education and investment communities by helping make sense of the world’s rapid development of human capital and measuring how countries rise and fall based on a selection of critical performance measures and outcomes.

The 2020 GES results can be accessed by country and in aggregate by clicking on the chart below.

SCOPE

Global education spending was roughly equivalent to 10% of the world’s GDP or $11 trillion in 2020. According to data recently compiled by Goldman Sachs, the current commercial education and workforce ecosystem outside of public and government allocation is estimated at $967 billion. It is driven by several key industries including After School Tutoring or AST ($423 billion in 2020); Corporate Training ($366 billion); and English Language Learning or ELL ($50B).

Yet there are still an estimated 250 million children in the world who cannot read, write and count, and 57 million who don’t go to school. Moreover, these figures were compiled before the 2020 pandemic which has severely curtailed access to education across emerging and frontier markets, as well as those more developed.

From a investment perspective, the ability of these countries to shift toward a value-added, sustainable economic growth path has always been determined by higher educational and skills attainment. This trend toward human capital and the future of work not only impacts a country’s economic trajectory and innovation potential but also its ability to improve income inequality, sharpen competitive advantage, consistently employ its youth, attract and sustain FDI inflows, and ensure social stability. Recent years have witnessed an investor backlash against “resource cursed” countries in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia that happily rode a wave of economic growth but neglected to adequately educate their populations.

Without investment in human capital, the future may deliver even harsher verdicts.

Our survey’s purpose is to answer the following questions:

How do educational achievement and skills impact an individual country’s economic growth trajectory, the quality and sustainability of its companies, its competitive positioning, risk profile and the potential returns to investors?
Which countries offer the most and least attractive environment for investment into human capital, education and related technology industries, and how is this changing over time?
Where should stakeholders look for the next set of emerging opportunities?

METHODOLOGY

The GES utilizes quantitative and qualitative research data to score countries emphasizing the current status of their educational system, correlations with economic growth and sustainability, and the operating environment for education investors and stakeholders.

GES inputs are updated on a periodic basis, as and when new information is available (typically on an annual basis). Countries are stack-ranked based on a broad selection of data inputs across three dimensions of economics, education and operating environment . Geographically, the GES is specifically focused on Emerging and Frontier Markets in the regions of Asia, Africa and Middle East, and Latin America.

There are currently 49 countries included in the GES, benchmarked from 2016. Participating countries have been selected with reference to two well-known and reputable classifications: the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which for several decades has been among the leading measures of emerging market status, and another leading indicator, the FTSE-Russell Frontier Index.

Participating Countries in the Global Edunomix Survey (GES)

The GES includes country data and correlations across three key dimensions:

Economic Growth and Sustainability
Educational Attainment
Investment and Operating Environment

Data is selected with an eye to what can enhance or detract from education and economic performance at the country level, and correlations are drawn from our proprietary database. For the purposes of constructing an index that applies broadly across our wide country selection, we have used a neutral weighting across the three dimensions. In 2017, two measures were added: PISA rankings in science, and the number of world university rankings (within global 1,000 leading universities), raising the number of total scoring variables to 21.

GES Inputs in Three Dimensions