Provisional scores. These version 2.0 scores come from a rescoring pass still in progress: Report v2.0 and Paper v2.0 are not yet written, and some readings are open to challenge (see the Contribute page). Totals may change before release.
Set your own bar
A criterion says what an economy ought to achieve; its threshold says how much is enough. Both are judgments. NEEC records each consequential one with its reason and the alternative a reasonable person might choose, so that a disagreement can be located exactly: not "the scores are wrong", but "this bar should sit there, and here is why".
Where the data are in the repository, you can move the bar and watch who crosses it. Where they are not yet, the choice is still listed, with what it is known to change.
Move a bar
C4.6, clause 3: regulation without improper influence
regulation of food, water, air, chemicals and medicines applied and enforced without improper influence (for a configured national economy, a World Justice Project sub-factor 6.2 score of 0.77 or more)
At 0.77, 36 of 143 jurisdictions in the 2025 edition meet the bar. Every bar from 0.67 to 0.87 gives the reference economies below the same verdicts.
Reference economies of the configured national economies, 2025 edition, at two decimals
Jurisdiction
System
Score
At the bar
United States
Status Quo Market Capitalism
0.87
meets
Denmark
Nordic Social Democracy
0.97
meets
Finland
Nordic Social Democracy
0.97
meets
Norway
Nordic Social Democracy
0.99
meets
Sweden
Nordic Social Democracy
0.92
meets
Singapore
State Capitalism / Singapore
0.94
meets
Qatar
State Capitalism / Qatar
0.66
does not meet
China
State Capitalism / China
0.61
does not meet
The Index covers neither the Soviet Union, Cuba nor North Korea, so this clause cannot be read from it for Centrally Planned Socialism. Iceland, one of the five Nordic economies, is not in the Index. Verdicts here are for one clause of three and are indicative: C4.6 is scored on each entry's stated date and configuration, and no C4.6 score has been set yet. Source: World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, sub-factor 6.2, extracted in wjp_rol_sf62_2012_2025.csv; the figures are asserted by criteria_v2_s45.py, section 5.
Weigh the domains
Totals give every criterion equal weight. The four schemes below are the ones Appendix A.4 of the Paper tests; the sliders let you set your own. Tiers do not move, because they count structural failures, not points.
Resolve the close calls
Each scoring document registers the scores a reasonable scorer could set differently. Resolve all of them one way and see which systems change tier.
Every recorded judgment call
These 11 choices are the ones the record marks as consequential. Each cites the decision that made it, in the version 2.0 criteria record. If you would set one differently, the push-back button opens a short form, and each report is answered on the record. To raise a choice not listed here, push back on it directly.
How free of influence must regulators be?
C4.6. Decisions 47.1, 48.1. Set under the owner's delegation, then confirmed (48.1).
The clause as written: regulation of food, water, air, chemicals and medicines applied and enforced without improper influence (for a configured national economy, a World Justice Project sub-factor 6.2 score of 0.77 or more)
Adopted
A World Justice Project sub-factor 6.2 score of 0.77 or more: the upper quartile of the 143 jurisdictions in the Index's 2025 edition, fixed as a figure so that later editions do not move it.
Alternative
The median of the same edition, 0.61.
Why
The clause asks for regulation applied without improper influence, which describes an absence, not a norm; the median is by construction the typical jurisdiction. Where version 2.0 reads a clause from a rating it takes the rating's top group, as C2.6 does with Freedom House. A bar re-derived each edition would be met by a quarter of the world whatever the world does; fixed once, it stays absolute.
What it changes
On the 2025 edition the choice changes the verdict for two reference economies only, Qatar (0.66) and China (0.61). This is one clause of three, and a score of 1.0 on C4.6 needs all three; no C4.6 score has been set yet.
C1.2b. Decision 45.2. Settled in Session 45 (48.1 notes that no Gini bar is open).
The clause as written: Gini <0.35 for wealth distribution
Adopted
A wealth Gini coefficient below 0.35.
Alternative
None recorded.
Why
Carried from version 1; version 2.0 changed only the text around it (revision class W). The published retrofit notes record wealth Ginis of 0.65 to 0.75 for Nordic Social Democracy and 0.85 for Status Quo Market Capitalism (neec_scores.csv).
What it changes
Not computed. The wealth-distribution series are not in the repository yet, so this bar cannot be moved here.
C4.4. Decision 48.3. Set under the owner's delegation; flagged for the owner's confirmation.
The clause as written: Democratic accountability for ≥80% of major decisions
Adopted
The share of employment in organizations whose investment, production and employment decisions answer to those they affect, at least 80%.
Alternative
Decisions made within law by an elected legislature count as accountable.
Why
Under the alternative, C4.4 would measure only whether power can be removed, and it would contradict the published reading of Stakeholder Capitalism.
What it changes
Recorded in the rescoring pass, not yet published: the alternative would raise Nordic Social Democracy's C4.4 to 1.0 and restore CCO-PTF-CIP-SZH's to 1.0. Because the adopted reading lowers the owner's own design, the owner has been asked to confirm it.
C1.1, C1.4. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
Adopted
The World Bank Societal Poverty Line, which rises with median income (a floor at the international line, plus half the median), in 2021 purchasing-power-parity dollars.
Alternative
The Bank's fixed $8.30 line.
Why
The Societal line tracks the cost of basic needs as incomes rise; a fixed line understates basic needs in high-income economies.
What it changes
Measured poverty in rich economies becomes close to relative, so reductions of 90% are rare.
Wealth building: an absolute bar or a relative one?
C1.2a. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3); the relative alternative is recorded for the owner.
The clause as written: ≥$60,000 median net-wealth accumulation over 20 years for 70%+ of participants, in constant 2019 US dollars at purchasing-power parity
Adopted
$60,000 of median net wealth accumulated over 20 years, in constant 2019 US dollars at purchasing-power parity.
Alternative
A bar relative to each economy's own costs of living, like the ranges of median expenses that version 2.0 removed.
Why
2019 is the year the Paper calibrated the figure on, and purchasing-power parity is the international method its own justification names. The removed ranges could not be reproduced, and their $70,000 figure contradicted the threshold.
What it changes
Raises the bar for middle-income contexts relative to the removed ranges; China is the only middle-income context in the corpus.
C2.6. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
The clause as written: Civil-liberties score ≥53 of 60 on the Freedom House checklist
Adopted
A Freedom House civil-liberties score of 53 or more out of 60, the top band of its former 1 to 7 rating.
Alternative
None recorded.
Why
Its fifteen questions cover expression and belief, association, rule of law and personal autonomy, and leave out the electoral questions that C2.4 and C4.4 measure. V-Dem's Civil Liberties Index is the cross-check; where the two disagree about the threshold, the call is flagged.
What it changes
Not computed. The Freedom House series are not in the repository yet.
C3.6. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
Adopted
Real output per hour worked and total factor productivity (Penn World Table 11.0), each non-declining over 20 years.
Alternative
Output growth, which the record sets aside.
Why
Defined on productivity rather than output, so that a design which chooses shorter hours or lower consumption can pass. Total factor productivity is a separate clause because output per hour can rise on capital accumulation alone while methods stagnate.
C4.2. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
The clause as written: Consumption-based carbon emissions falling ≥3.8% a year
Adopted
Consumption-based carbon emissions falling by at least 3.8% a year: the rate of a 35% cut over 2019 to 2030, the low end of the IPCC's 1.5 °C range (AR6).
Alternative
None recorded.
Why
Consumption-based accounts charge an economy with the emissions of what it consumes, wherever they are produced. The rate taken from the low end of the range applies at any date.
What it changes
Not computed. The emissions series are not in the repository yet.
C3.5. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
The clause as written: externalization <10% of total costs
Adopted
The IMF's implicit fossil-fuel subsidies, the unpriced environmental cost of fuel use as a share of GDP, taken as the published lower bound of externalized costs, with GDP standing for total costs.
Alternative
None recorded.
Why
No agency publishes externalized costs in full; this series is the published lower bound.
What it changes
Not computed. The series is not in the repository yet.
C4.1. Decision 45.3. Confirmed by the owner (45.3).
Adopted
Intergenerational justice measured as fiscal and wealth sustainability: general government gross debt (IMF) and positive net national saving.
Alternative
The version 1 derivation, from N12 and N6 (Ecological Compliance).
Why
After v2.0 moved its ecological content elsewhere, nothing ecological remained in C4.1; fiscal space is the content of N5, so its derivation changes from N12 and N6 to N12 and N5.
What it changes
The implicit weight of ecological compliance (N6) fell from 3.8% to 1.8% on 28 criteria; Harm Internalization (C4.6) returns it to 3.4% of 29.