Austria
Commitment to Development Index 2012
Austria
David Roodman and Julia Clark
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 27 of the world’s richest countries based on their dedication to policies that benefit poor nations. Looking beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid flows, the CDI measures national policies in seven areas that are important to developing countries: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology. This report reviews Austria’s performance on the 2012 CDI. For more details, visit cgdev.org/cdi.
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Overall Score
Austria’s 2012 CDI Performance n Overall rank 2012: 5 n Overall score 2012: 6.2 n Change since 2003: +0.7 (using 2012 methodology) Austria ranks 5 overall in 2012. Austria is rewarded for admitting a large number of legal immigrants from developing countries, low consumption of ozone-depleting substances, and participation in international security treaties. But Austria is penalized for poor donor practices such as high levels of tied aid and for accepting a relatively small share of refuges and asylum seekers. Austria’s greenhouse gas emissions also grew almost as fast as GDP over the last decade.
Austria’s CDI Performance, 2003–12 2003
Aid
2012
Trade Investment
th
Migration Environment Security Technology Overall
0
www.cgdev.org/cdi
4
8
12
16
Austria Country Report
Aid
Aid quality is just as important as aid quantity, so the CDI measures gross aid as a share of GDP adjusted for various quality factors: it subtracts debt service, penalizes “tied� aid that makes recipients spend aid only on donor goods and services, rewards aid to poor but relatively well-governed recipients, and penalizes overloading poor governments with many small projects.
n Score: 3.1 n Rank: 19
Investment
Rich-country investment in poorer countries can transfer technologies, upgrade management and create jobs. The CDI includes a checklist of policies that support healthy investment in developing countries.
n Score: 4.8 n Rank: 17 Strengths - Political risk insurance agency provides wide coverage and screens potential projects for violations of human, labor and environmental rights - Provides some official support for outflows of portfolio investment
Strengths - Prevents project proliferation; large average project size (rank: 2)
Weaknesses - Large share of tied or partially tied aid (40.3%; rank: 19) - Low net aid volume as a share of the economy (0.28%; rank: 17)
Trade
International trade has been a force for economic development for centuries. The CDI measures trade barriers in rich countries against exports from developing countries.
n Score: 5.6 n Rank: 10 Strengths - Low tariffs on textiles (6.4% of the value of imports; rank: 3) - Low tariffs on apparel (6.4% of the value of imports; rank: 3) - High level of manufactures imports from poorer countries (10.1% of GDP per capita; rank: 4)
Weaknesses - Lacks policies to fully prevent double taxation of corporate profits earned abroad - Weak participation and leadership in Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), including no support for the Multi-Donor Trust Fund
Migration
The movement of people from poor to rich countries provides unskilled immigrants with jobs, income and knowledge. This increases the flow of money sent home by migrants abroad and the transfer of skills when the migrants return.
n Score: 11.7 n Rank: 1 Strengths - Large increase during the 1990s in the number of unskilled immigrants from developing countries living in Austria (rank by share of population: 1) - Bears large share of the burden of refugees during humanitarian crises (rank: 4) - Large number of immigrants from developing countries entering Austria (rank by share of population: 5)
Weaknesses - Small share of foreign students from developing countries (35%; rank: 22) - Tuition for foreign students higher than for nationals
Center for Global Development
Austria Country Report
www.cgdev.org/cdi
Environment
Rich countries use a disproportionate amount of scarce resources, and poor countries are most vulnerable to global warming and ecological deterioration, so the CDI measures the impact of policies on the global climate, fisheries, and biodiversity.
n Score: 6.2 n Rank: 17
Technology
Rich countries contribute to development through the creation and dissemination of new technologies. The CDI captures this by measuring government support for R&D and penalizing strong intellectual property rights regimes that limit the dissemination of new technologies to poor countries.
n Score: 5.7 n Rank: 8
Strengths - No fishing subsidies (rank: 1) - Low fossil fuel production rate per capita (0.0 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; rank: 1) - Low consumption of ozone-depleting chemicals (rank: 1)
Strengths
Weaknesses
Weaknesses
- Greenhouse gas emissions grew almost as fast as GDP in 1999–2009 (average annual growth rate/GDP, -0.040; rank: 27) - Low gas taxes ($0.88 per liter; rank: 18)
- Offers patent-like proprietary rights to developers of data compilations, including those assembled from data in the public domain - Imposes strict limitations on anti-circumvention technologies that can defeat encryption of copyrighted digital materials
Security
Since security is a prerequisite for development, the CDI rewards contributions to internationally sanctioned peacekeeping operations and forcible humanitarian interventions, military protection of global sea lanes, and participation in international security treaties. It also penalizes arms exports to poor and undemocratic governments.
n Score: 6.1 n Rank: 6
- Small share of government R&D expenditure on defense (rank by share of GDP: 4) - Revokes unused patents
For More Visit cgdev.org/cdi for the complete 2012 edition of the Commitment to Development Index. There, you can explore the numbers with our interactive graphing tool, view additional publications and background papers, and dive deeper into the CDI methodology by downloading our data and code.
Strengths - Participates in major international security treaties and regimes - Substantial financial and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping operations over last decade (rank by share of GDP: 8)
Weaknesses - Only moderate contributions to non-UN peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions over last decade (rank by share of GDP: 13)
Center for Global Development
Austria Country Report
www.cgdev.org/cdi
Commitment to Development Index 2012 Country Denmark Norway Sweden Luxembourg Austria Netherlands Finland New Zealand United Kingdom Portugal Canada Germany Belgium France Spain Australia Ireland Switzerland United States Italy Greece Hungary Slovakia Czech Republic Poland Japan South Korea
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 13 13 15 15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Aid 11.5 13.0 12.6 13.0 3.1 9.5 6.6 3.3 6.8 3.1 5.0 3.9 6.4 4.2 4.0 4.3 7.5 5.2 3.2 1.3 1.6 0.8 0.8 1.1 0.7 1.6 1.0
Trade 5.3 1.1 5.8 5.3 5.6 5.9 5.8 8.1 5.5 5.6 6.2 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.5 7.4 5.2 1.5 6.7 5.7 5.3 5.4 5.8 5.5 5.6 0.1 -1.3
Investment 4.7 6.1 5.3 4.2 4.8 6.3 5.1 4.3 6.3 5.2 6.1 6.3 5.3 6.1 5.9 6.1 2.9 4.4 5.0 5.4 4.0 3.6 2.9 3.9 4.1 5.2 5.6
Migration 6.2 9.9 7.8 6.8 11.7 5.5 4.4 6.4 4.7 4.0 7.0 6.9 5.0 4.0 5.4 4.2 2.8 8.6 5.2 4.7 6.4 1.7 0.6 1.3 0.6 1.9 1.3
Environment 6.8 3.2 7.3 5.5 6.2 6.7 7.4 6.2 7.2 7.2 2.5 6.9 7.0 6.9 6.4 3.8 6.5 5.8 4.3 6.7 5.9 7.9 8.3 7.2 7.4 4.5 4.2
Security 7.7 7.6 1.2 5.0 6.1 3.2 6.6 7.3 5.4 6.0 5.7 3.7 3.6 3.7 3.4 5.1 6.9 4.4 4.6 5.0 5.7 5.4 5.5 1.6 3.8 4.5 1.4
Technology 6.6 5.7 4.7 4.2 5.7 5.4 5.9 4.8 4.3 7.4 5.5 5.0 4.6 6.6 5.8 5.2 3.9 4.8 4.9 4.2 2.8 3.4 2.6 5.3 2.7 6.1 7.0
Overall Score 7.0 6.6 6.4 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.0 5.8 5.7 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.3 5.3 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.0 4.8 4.7 4.5 4.0 3.8 3.7 3.6 3.4 2.7
Change since 2003 -0.2 +0.7 -0.3 n/a +0.7 -0.1 +0.1 0.0 +0.7 +1.1 +0.3 +0.5 +0.5 +1.0 +0.7 +0.2 0.0 +0.2 +0.8 +0.7 +0.7 n/a n/a n/a n/a +1.3 n/a
The above table lists scores for each of the 27 CDI-ranked countries across seven policy areas. A country’s overall performance is the average of its seven component scores, each of which are scaled so that an average score in 2012 equals 5.0. The final column shows the change in each country’s overall score since the CDI began in 2003 (using 2012 methodology).
About The CDI The Commitment to Development Index has been compiled each year since 2003 by the Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent think tank that works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community. CGD senior fellow David Roodman is the chief architect of the CDI, and collaborators have included William R. Cline on trade; Theodore H. Moran on investment; Jeanne Batalova, Kimberly A. Hamilton, and Elizabeth Grieco on migration; Amy Cassara and Daniel Prager on environment; Michael E. O’Hanlon, Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, Mark Stoker and Jason Alderwick on security, and Keith Maskus and Walter Park on technology. The Index is supported by the CDI Consortium.
Center for Global Development
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