Category: To Be Footnoted

Using OECD rankings as either a measure of a country’s performance or as a target to justify adopting a particular policy has become popular amongst the member states in recent years. Policies benchmarked using rankings are simple concepts to market to voters and appeal to a sense of nationalistic pride: ‘winning’ is important, but if you can’t win, then at least you want to be seen to be outranking your fiercest national rival (e.g. Australia if you are New Zealand; Sweden if you are Finland; the United States if you are Canada).