New Zealand · Country Strength

## What this measures

Palanor's composite read of New Zealand's position against the rest of the world, 0–100. Each year, ten measures are ranked across every economy the World Bank reports on (~215), converted to percentiles (100 = strongest), and weighted. A reading of 60 means New Zealand scores stronger than roughly 60% of the world on this weighting.

| Component | Weight | Stronger when | |---|---|---| | Real GDP growth, 3-year average | 14 | higher | | Interest, % of central-government revenue | 14 | lower | | Governance (WGI six-dimension mean) | 14 | higher | | Inflation distance from 2.5% | 12 | closer | | Currency vs USD, 3-year change | 12 | stronger | | GDP per capita (PPP, log) | 10 | higher | | Central-government budget balance, % GDP | 10 | higher | | Human Development Index | 10 | higher | | Current account, % GDP | 4 | higher |

## Why these components

Growth, prices and the currency are the economy's momentum; interest burden and the budget balance are the state's room to manoeuvre; governance and human development are the ground both stand on. Interest as a share of revenue carries the fiscal weight because it folds debt level, borrowing cost and tax capacity into one ratio.

## How to read it

Percentiles, so the score is relative: a country can improve and still fall if the world improves faster. Read multi-year direction. Each point's metadata lists its component percentiles, its coverage and any component carried forward from the prior year.

## Honesty rules

- **Coverage gate.** Components present must carry at least 70% of the weight, or no reading is published for that year. - **Thin fields are skipped.** A component is not ranked in a year fewer than 40 economies report. - **Publication lag only, slow series only.** The budget balance, interest burden and current account — published a year or more behind — carry their prior-year value one year; governance and HDI carry two. Growth, inflation and the currency are never carried: a stale inflation print in a disinflation year would point the wrong way.

## What it does not say

It is a relative macro-and-institutions read, not a credit rating, a default probability or an investment recommendation. Search attention is deliberately excluded — interest in a country spikes on crises as readily as on booms; it is published separately as the country's Attention signal.

## Source

Computed by Palanor from World Bank WDI and WGI (CC BY 4.0) and UNDP HDR (CC BY 3.0 IGO). Methodology is code: `src/lib/sovereign/strength.ts`.