You can gain valuable insights into international business by examining how countries compare to each other.

Various research groups and international agencies systematically examine economic, political, and other features of nations. Visit globalEDGE™ Tools and Data, scroll down, and click Interactive Rankings. Select Countries. You will find dozens of criteria ranking countries based on GDP per capita; Education—literacy rate; People—population total; People—population density; Health—mortality rate;

Energy—electricity production; Infrastructure—mobile cellular subscriptions; Infrastructure—roads, total network;

Trade and Investment—foreign direct investment net inflows; and many other factors. Choose the ranking criteria that interest you most, and then examine the following three countries: Germany, India, and South Africa. Based on your analysis, explain why they rank where they do. Do their relative positions make sense to you? Does each country seem like a good place to do business? Why or why not? Hint: Evaluate countries on a per-capita basis by dividing each criterion by the country’s population. L01