International Property Rights Ranking Article Published: 20:24 25/06/2007 Article Classification: Canadian Ski Resort - Fernie
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IPRI Ranking

An in depth report has been compiled ranking Property Rights worldwide and in effect showing the highest and lowest risk areas for property investment...

The 2007 International Property Rights Index (IPRI) is the first international comparative study that measures the significance of both physical and intellectual property rights and their protection for economic well-being. Olive Tree use data from this report to 'Risk Rate' the developments that it promotes. Richard Brady said "Assessing risk is not an exact science, but our Partners and Clients expect Olive Tree to base its judgements on sound principles".

The International Property Rights Index provides the public, researchers and policymakers, from across the globe, with a tool for comparative analysis and future research on global property rights. In order to incorporate and grasp the important aspects related to property rights protection, the Index focuses on three areas: Legal and Political Environment (LP), Physical Property Rights (PPR), and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). The current study analyses data for seventy countries around the globe, representing ninety-five percent of world GDP.

The 2007 International Property Rights Index Ranking of the seventy economies
included in the country set, which represent ninety-five percent of world GDP. Norway leads the country list with an 8.3 rating out of the maximum of 10. The second position is occupied by the Netherlands, followed by Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia sharing the third rank. Switzerland and Austria are the two remaining countries in the top ten list of the IPRI.

The report measures the following catagories:

Legal and Political Environment

Physical Property

Intellectual Property

Gender Equality

At the bottom end of the spectrum, the countries rated to have the weakest property rights protection are Ecuador with a rating of 3.3, Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria, Paraguay,
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Bolivia, and in last place – with a score of 2.2 – Bangladesh.

The country set average of the IPRI is 5.3.

It is evident that none of the countries score below a 2.2 rating. Even more clear, however, is that no country has a ranking above 8.3. This fact illustrates that there is a significant gap to the strongest property rights protection based on the IPRI criteria – even for the top countries in the ranking. It is arguable if such a rating of 10 would be desirable for economies, or if the optimal PR protection lies below this point. Of course, the answer to this question depends on each country’s perception of “optimal” as well as on its objectives and intentions regarding its PR policies, and will
thus not be discussed further in this report. Nevertheless, it is emphasized that, in the authors’ opinion, a rank in the higher quartiles of the IPRI is certainly more desirable than in the lower range. Additionally, the authors’ find that countries with ratings of six or lower should be considered as to be in urgent need of improvement of their fundamental property rights system. Certainly, these are subjective statements and readers are welcome to draw different conclusions. For reasons
of neutrality country data in this report is presented in terms of performance by quartile.

New Zealand ranks first in Legal and Political Environment (LP), Norway in Physical PR
(PPR) and Germany leads the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) category.
A notable fact within the top performing countries is that Sweden, Norway, Finland and the UK are among the top five in two of the three sub-components, which makes a strong case for a well-functioning property rights protection in Northern European countries, especially Scandinavia.

Yet, as a reminder, top line survey data will not reflect all components of private property rights and thus the overall IPRI rankings may not exhibit all necessary data. This would be the case for Scandinavian nations that traditionally function under socialized healthcare systems, which lack any establishment of individual property rights and ownership over healthcare in the system.

This and other intricacies will be examined and integrated in future studies.
At the bottom end, Bangladesh is the weakest in Legal and Political Environment and Physical Property Rights, while Bolivia closes the Intellectual Property Rights range. Next to its overall weak ranking in the IPRI with a scaled score of 2.2, Bangladesh is among the bottom five in all of the Index’s sub-components.

Source 'IPRI' For more information please visit www.internationalpropertyrightsindex.org