What makes a country “good”?

Click on a country to find what it is good (and bad) at and other countries it is similar to. The best and worst metrics for the country will display to the left and the map will recolor itself to reflect the most similar countries and least similar countries across all metrics.

These observations tell us that the metrics in the dataset captures relationships between countries that make sense intuitively. This suggests that if there is a proper “axis of good”, these data are likely rich enough to find it. We merely need to select the right metrics.

To aid in metric discovery, we want to visualize all countries and metrics simultaneously. Below, we’ve plotted the values of all metrics for all countries as a grid of bars, where the bar height indicates the value for each metric/country combination. Select metrics on the right and the countries will be ranked by their percentile for that metric. The metrics will also be ranked by their similarity to the selected metric.

It is clear that many metrics are correlated with each other (the same countries have high values for both metrics). Certain countries are also correlated with each other (they have similar patterns of metric values).

Some countries are similar across metrics

For example, the countries in the white bounding box all rank low on the selected metric, but rank high on many other metrics.

Some metrics are similar across countries

For example, metrics in the white bounding box all have lots of green to the left and lots of red to the right, meaning the same countries are ranking high and low in each.

Although we can find groupings in this space, we always see the full dimensionality of the dataset. The final visualization will try to reduce this to a single axis.

It’s time to combine metrics and rank countries by how good they are. The sliders below let you set how much each metric contributes to the ranking. Since we have established that countries can be good at some metrics and bad at others, you can create two sets of weights to combine metrics.

Play around with different weights or select from our presets.

Note: once you have picked your favorite metrics to combine, the scatter plot will update to show how each country performs under your conditions. We then find the “axis of good” in this plot by finding the line that explains the maximum amount of variability across countries. The black line shows the axis of good given the two sets of metrics you selected.

The Axis of Good plot lets you pick aggregate metrics. One thing is pretty clear, most aggregate metrics are correlated with each other (countries that do well by one aggregate will do well by another), although there are some trade offs.

Another takeaway is that the Northern European countries are doing well on many metrics and thus often appear at the top.

Economic vs. Social Good

Choosing indicators of economic health (e.g., GDP, GDP per capita, Tax Burden Score, etc.) and plotting them against metrics reflecting social good (e.g., civil liberties, political rights, % female MPs) shows that countries that are doing well economically are also doing well socially. The two aggregate metrics are very correlated.

Top Countries

1. Sweden
2. Germany
3. United Kingdom
4. Norway
5. Netherlands

Governing vs. Social Good

Choosing indicators of government health (e.g., control of corruption, government effectiveness, government integrity, etc.) and plotting them against metrics reflecting social good (e.g., civil liberties, political rights, % female MPs) shows positive correlation. Countries that have functioning governments are doing well on social indicators as well.

Top Countries

1. Germany
2. Norway
3. United Kingdom
4. Sweden
5. Netherlands

Governing vs. Economic good

Choosing indicators of government health (e.g., control of corruption, government effectiveness, government integrity, etc.) and plotting them against metrics reflecting economic health (e.g., GDP, GDP per capita, Tax Burden Score, etc.) shows positive correlation. Countries that have healthy government indicators also have good economic indicators.

Top Countries

1. Sweden
2. Netherlands
3. Luxembourg
4. Denmark
5. New Zealand

Overall, what makes a "good" country will not be the same for everyone, but it is clear from the analyses above that Northern Europe is dominating many metrics in the dataset provided by WDVP. While it is almost impossible to infer the cause of their success from these correlational analyses, they are well known for implementing a welfare state, where the government promotes the social well-being of its citizens. It is not surprising that they dominate the social metrics, however, these data reveal that this in no way hurts their economic indicators. In other words, if a country wants to knock Northern Europe off the top of the list, cutting corners on social fronts isn't necessarily a shortcut to better economic metrics.