Instrumental Factors

In selecting instrumental factors to compile GGFI, a number of key properties are essential:

• Time series – where possible we will seek data that is contemporary (published within the last three years) is part of a series (collected as part of a programme rather than as a one off) and is on-going (there are plans to update it in the future).
• Locational relevance – where possible we will seek data at a financial centre level. Where this is not possible we will use appropriate apportionment rules and/or alternative data, i.e. regional.
• Accessibility – data should be publicly accessible, this enables transparency in the assessments. Only in exceptional circumstances- for example where no public data exists for an essential measure, do we purchase data commercially.

Currently, the GGFI uses 149 instrumental factors which we have grouped into the following areas:

1. The Business Environment: Economics statistics and information on the legal ,taxation and the policy environment;
2. Human Capital: These include data on education, employment, crime, corruption and health;
3. Infrastructure: These focus on the physical attributes of centres such as telecommunications, real-estate and transport;
4. Sustainability: These look at the environmental performance of financial centres, including data on sustainable and green finance;

The rules for the use of this data in our analytical model are as follows:

• Updates to the indices are collected and collated every six months;
• No weightings are applied to indices;
• Indices are entered into the GGFI model as directly as possible, whether this is a rank, a derived score, a value, a distribution around a mean or a distribution around a benchmark;
• If a factor is at a national level, the score will be used for all centres in that country; nation-based factors will be avoided if financial centre (city)-based factors are available;
• If an index has multiple values for a city or nation, the most relevant value is used (and the method for judging relevance is noted);
• If an index is at a regional level, the most relevant allocation of scores to each centre is made (and the method for judging relevance is noted); and
• If an index does not contain a value for a particular financial centre, a blank is entered against that centre (no average or mean is used).

The instrumental factors for the tenth edition of the GGFI are listed below: