Governance isn’t a drag on competitiveness. It’s the source

This month, IMD – one of Europe’s leading business schools, where I serve as an Executive Fellow and North America Program Co-Director – released its 2026 World Competitiveness Ranking. As I pointed out in my keynote at the U.S. launch of the index at the Swiss Embassy in Washington, the results sit awkwardly with the stories that the world’s largest economies tell about their world-leading competitiveness. The truth is, neither the U.S. nor China is a true world leader in this realm – the U.S. sits in 10th place globally while China is 12th. The most competitive economies in the world are Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland, three nations renowned for their prioritization of governance. IMD’s reading of the data is blunt: competitiveness now turns on institutional credibility – predictable rules, enforceable commitments, the capacity of a state to govern – more than on cost, scale, or even speed of innovation. Governance is not the price a country pays for competitiveness. It is becoming the source of that competitiveness. This cuts against a deep assumption that the less a country governs its markets and its innovators, the more competitive it will be – the view that regulation is, effectively, a tax on dynamism. In reality, the economies that take governance most seriously are also the ones that compete best. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoque’s books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and tech—turning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":