Policy makers who are concerned about expanding the economies of their countries should have the ability to predict the economic future of their country . This does not mean that they should do this from the back of their minds without analyzing and looking at certain facts and working with accurate or factual statistical data. In short, this requires some critical analysis to be undertaken looking at some very important aspects of the economy before predicting the country’s future and subsequently making policies based on sound analysis and judgement. This can be achieved using the Country Analysis Tool. The Harvard Business School developed a very good and effective analysis tool which is a four-step process that attempts to organize all available and factual economic, social, political, and geographic data primarily for strategic development.
Step 1
Analyzing the Country’s past performance
The first step involves policy makers analyzing all available and factual measures measures, such as the exchange rates, GNP, inflation, employment, investment, consumption, population growth, education level just to mention a few.
Step 2
Identifying the Country’s Strategy
Once step 1 is completed, that is analyzing the past performance, policy makers should strive to identify the main goals of the country’s government and this should most importantly be linked to productivity of the specific country’s economy and the fiscal, monetary, trade, and social policies.
Step 3
Analyzing the Country’s Context
Upon completing step 2, the policy makers should then engage step 3 by evaluating the “basic facts” about their country such as several physical indicators bordering on size, population and geography then political indicators covering the aspects of government type, stability, corruption and international indicators in line with trade advantages and competitiveness. Always important to narrow down things to the specific context of their country.
Step 4
Making a Prediction about the Country
With the 3 steps above completed, policy makers should be able to combine all important information and make a prediction or predictions based on the facts gathered so far.
The Country Analysis tool or process is a multi-purpose tool which if followed or used properly, provides the best way to sort out all the various segments of economic data that are available on a specific nation. Using this analysis tool gives policy makers rest assurance that the policies will be sound and provides them with the framework for proper strategies in policy formulation.
