Economic Fitness

Economic Fitness ranks countries by the breadth and exclusivity of what they can competitively export, using the non-linear coupled-map algorithm of Tacchella et al. (2012). Unlike the linear ECI (the method of reflections, equivalent to the second eigenvector), fitness penalizes a country only weakly for also exporting simple, ubiquitous goods, and penalizes a product heavily if even one low-fitness country can make it. The two metrics agree on the extremes but diverge sharply for large diversified developing economies, which is where the development-trajectory signal lives.

Computing fitness for 2024...