The GEDInstitute and Global Entrepreneurship Network are pleased to announce the launch of the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Index.

Enterprise is a crucial engine of economic growth. Without enterprise and entrepreneurs, there would be little innovation, little productivity growth, and few new jobs.

Entrepreneurial success does not take place in a vacuum. Entrepreneurs exist in the context of their particular geography – be that their local, national, or even supranational economy and society.

This mix of attitudes, resources, and infrastructure is known as the entrepreneurship ‘ecosystem’. The Global Entrepreneurship Index is an annual index that measures the health of the entrepreneurship ecosystems in each of 137 countries. It then ranks the performance of these against each other. This provides a picture of how each country performs in both the domestic and international context.

The GEDI methodology collects data on the entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations of the local population and then weights these against the prevailing social and economic ‘infrastructure’ – this includes aspects such as broadband connectivity and the transport links to external markets. This process creates 14 ‘pillars’ which GEDI uses to measure the health of the regional ecosystem.

The top ten countries are:

Rank Country Per capita GDP International $ (WB) GEI Score
1 United States 52676 83.4
2 Switzerland 54933 78
3 Canada 42104 75.6
4 Sweden 45533 75.5
5 Denmark 44005 74.1
6 Iceland 42487 73.5
7 Australia 42149 72.5
8 United Kingdom 37451 71.3
9 Ireland 42012 71
10 Netherlands 46241 67.8

Download the full report.