In 2013 Switzerland moves up two places in the KOF globalization index and is now in 5th position. Only the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and Austria performed better. The index serves to observe changes in globalization in a range of countries over a long period. This KOF globalization index 2016 is available for 187 countries, from the period 1970 to 2013.
The index measures globalization on the basis of three dimensions, an economic one, a social one and a political one. The economic dimension includes the strength of international trade, investment and income flows in relation to gross domestic product and secondly, the influence of trade and capital movement restrictions. The social dimension is measured on the basis of three categories: international personal contacts in the form of telephone calls and letters, information flows measured at the point of access to the internet, television and foreign press products, and the cultural proximity to the global mainstream. The political dimension is measured by the number of foreign embassies in a country, the number of international organizations belonging to the country, the number of UN peace missions in which the country participated, and the number of bilateral and multilateral contracts the country has concluded since 1945. Switzerland performed particularly well in the social dimension sub-index, where it finished in third place behind Austria and Singapore.
