How sensitive is your method to the choice of ranking algorithm?
We tried a number of alternative ranking algorithms for these data. Our method is simple to understand and something that was relatively insensitive to outliers. We are certainly not applying any weighting. Frankly the precise position of a country in a table does not matter that much. What matters much more is each country’s balance sheet and the gross positions in the table. Countries in the top twenty are doing a lot for the common good, relative to the size of their economy. Those in the bottom twenty are hindering the common good, or at least are free-riders on other countries. Countries in the middle are doing something in between.
I hope that people can see not only how well their country is contributing to the common good but also how they are doing it – note, for example, how the way that Finland contributes is different from the way New Zealand does.