Economist Intelligence Unit

This is the sixth edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy index. It reflects the situation at the end of 2013. The Democracy index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Countries are placed within one of four types of regimes: full democracies; flawed democracies; hybrid regimes; and authoritarian regimes.

GDP, Inflation, Commodity Prices

The Global Food Security Index 2013: An annual measure of the state of global food security, is the second edition of an Economist Intelligence Unit study, commissioned by DuPont. Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is a dynamic benchmarking model that uses quantitative and qualitative indicators to provide a standard against which countries can be measured and reveal individual country strengths and weaknesses. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) created the Global Food Security Index in 2012 to deepen the dialogue on food insecurity and measure the risks in a consistent, rigorous framework. Sponsored by DuPont, the index assesses food security across three internationally designated dimensions: affordability, availability and utilisation - the last modified to assess food quality and safety. The index builds on existing food security research and frameworks, including the annual State of Food Insecurity in the World report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the Maplecroft Food Security Risk Index, among others. GFSI complements these tools by analysing the inputs, or the drivers, of food security as a way of fostering dialogue about practical solutions and policy reform. Importantly, the index considers the nutritional quality and safety of food—elements missing from similar indices—alongside traditional supply and availability issues. Finally, the index features a unique monthly adjustment for changes in global food prices and other macroeconomic factors, allowing it to serve as an early warning of potential price shocks that might compromise a country’s food security, or worsen already poor conditions.

The Global Talen Index Report: The Outlook to 2015

Over the past decade or more, there have been several efforts to find out which are the world’s best-performing healthcare systems. The pioneer was the World Health Organisation (WHO), which used its annual World Health Report in 2000 to perform a systematic global analysis. The work that The Economist Intelligence Unit has previously carried out in the area of value-based healthcare has made it clear that value is a vexed term

"Hot spots is an EIU research programme, commissioned by Citigroup, which ranks the competitiveness of 120 of the world’s major cities. The research drew on two main initiatives: • A unique Index that compares 120 of the world’s major urban agglomerations across eight distinct categories of competitiveness and 31 individual indicators. These cities collectively represent about 29% of the global economy, with a combined GDP of US$20.2tr. A detailed note on definitions and methodology is provided in the appendix. • Hot spot conducted in-depth interviews with ten city experts, mayors and corporate executives, to get their insights on city competitiveness."

This dataset contains a summary of Which city is the most expensive to live in and Which city is the cheapest.