According to his system of scoring these indicators, France and Germany both lag some way behind Britain and America in their treatment of minority investors, but have made improvements in the past year.

ECONOMIST: Minority shareholders

Education should have a well-established, well-respected information system that yields varied and comprehensive indicators about kids, teachers, schools and school systems. (Any number of worthy organizations are trying to do something about that, including the Data Quality Campaign, the Council of Great City Schools, and GreatSchools.org).

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS