rant Thornton has ranked the United States in 10th place among 50 national economies for growing businesses.

Stephen Chipman

A new index dubbed the Grant Thornton Global Dynamism Index rated the U.S. and other countries using 22 different indicators of “dynamism,” defined as changes to the economy that have enabled recovery from the 2008-09 economic recession and are likely to lead to a fast rate of future growth. Key drivers include business operating environment, science and technology, labor and human capital, economics and growth and the financing environment.

Business growth fundamentals remain strong in many developed economies even as they struggle with mountains of debt, Grant Thornton noted. Singapore, Finland, Sweden and Israel are rated as the best countries for dynamic growing businesses, according to the GDI. The U.S. ranked eighth best for its financing environment, but did not rank inside the top 10 in the four other key categories.

“In comparison, U.S. business growth fundamentals are solid,” said Grant Thornton CEO Stephen Chipman in a statement. “A strong and stable legal system, access to capital, credit and a highly skilled diverse workforce are all key drivers of business location decisions. The ratings go well beyond basic GDP data. Rather than provide a measure of an economy’s success during a period of high economic turbulence, this iteration provides a true illustration of the strength of each economy as a place for dynamic businesses to flourish.”

More than 400 senior executives from a broad range of countries and industries were interviewed to determine which aspects of these attributes they deemed most important for business growth. This allowed for the weighting of each aspect according to its perceived relevance.

Here are the overall rankings:

1. Singapore      72.1
2. Finland          70.5
3. Sweden           69.6
4. Israel               69.3
5. Austria            66.1
6. Australia          65.6
7. Switzerland      65.1
8. South Korea    64.9
9. Germany         64.8
10. United States  64.1

A.    Business operating environment

(Foreign trade and exchange regimes and controls; policy towards private enterprise and competition; political stability; and legal and regulatory risk)

1. Finland          94.2
2. Ireland          93.4
3. Sweden         92.8
4. Netherlands   91.5
5. Denmark       91.4
6. Canada          91.2
7. Australia        90.7
7. Luxembourg  90.7
9. New Zealand 90.4
10. Austria         90.1

B. Science and technology

(Broadband subscriber lines per 100 inhabitants; growth in broadband subscriber lines; R&D as % of GDP; total IT spending growth)

1. Israel             73.0
2. Finland          65.8
3. Sweden         64.9
4. South Korea  61.0
5. Switzerland    59.0
6. Japan            58.8
7. Denmark       56.4
8. Taiwan          53.9
9. Germany       53.5
10. UAE           53.2

C. Labor and human capital

(Labor productivity growth; unemployment; school life expectancy; % of population under 30.)

1. Argentina      72.5
2. Slovak Republic 72.4
3. Uruguay        69.0
4. China            67.4
5. New Zealand 65.6
6. South Korea  64.1
7. Australia        63.9
8. Norway         62.4
9. Indonesia      62.1
10. Taiwan        61.6

D. Financing environment

(Quality of overall financial regulatory system; access of firms to medium-term capital; growth in value of inward M&A deals; value of inward M&A deals; private sector credit as % of GDP; inward direct investment growth; corporate tax burden.)

1. Singapore      82.2
2. Finland          72.3
3. France           71.8
4. Austria          71.4
4. Chile             71.4
6. Poland          70.4
7. New Zealand 69.8
8. United States 69.5
9. Israel             68.3
10. Slovenia       67.6

E. Economics and growth

(Real GDP growth; private consumption per head; change in $ value of stock market index.)

1. Argentina      95.6
2. China            94.6
3. Uruguay        82.3
4. Chile             80.6
5. India             80.0
6. Indonesia      79.8
7. Nigeria          79.4
8. Turkey           78.0
9. Singapore      75.3
10. Colombia    73.8
10. Russia          73.8

The complete list of 50 countries is available at www.globaldynamismindex.com.