Population:

Wikipedia aggregated a list of countries by population using the information provided by each country’s official census bureau.

Other Demographics:

The GNI, unemployment rate, and literacy rate were provided by the World Bank.  GNI is calculated by

AT Kearney Global Services Location Index:

The 2011 AT Kearney Global Services Locations Index ranks the top 50 offshore locations based on:

·         financial attractiveness (measured by compensation costs, infrastructure costs, and tax/ regulatory costs)

·         people skills and availability (measured by relevant experience, size and education of labor force, education, and language capabilities)

·         business environment (measured by country risk, country infrastructure, cultural exposure, and security of IP)

Ease of Doing Business rank:

The International Finance Corporation ranks 183 economies on their ease of doing business, based on 9 topics: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business.  A high ranking on this index indicated that the environment is conducive to starting and operating a local firm.

Standard and Poor’ Currency Risk rating:

Country risk considerations are a standard part of Standard & Poor’s analysis for credit ratings on any issuer or issue. Currency of repayment is a key factor in this analysis. An obligor’s capacity to repay foreign currency obligations may be lower than its capacity to repay obligations in its local currency due to the sovereign government’s own relatively lower capacity to repay external versus domestic debt. These sovereign risk considerations are incorporated in the debt ratings assigned to specific issues. Foreign currency issuer ratings are also distinguished from local currency issuer ratings to identify those instances where sovereign risks make them different for the same issuer.

Economist’s 2010 Democracy Index:

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy ranked 167 countries based on 5 categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.  Based on scores of 1-10 in these categories, each country is ranked based on their total score and classified as a full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, or authoritarian regime.

Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index:

“Transparency International defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” The Corruption Perceptions Index combines different assessments and business opinion surveys that focus on the bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and the strength and effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts.  The use of no less than 3 sources per country allows the CPI to provide a more accurate comparison of corruption between the 178 ranked countries. 

Read more about the ranking system here.

Gartner Identifies Top 30 Offshore Services Locations:

The top 30 countries for outsourcing were rated on a qualitative scale on the following 10 criteria: language, government, labor pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political and economic environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data/ IP security and privacy.