The School of Economics and Management of the University of Porto (FEP) has just released the sixth edition of the Elite Quality Index (EQx2025), the leading global political economy ranking. The index assesses whether a country’s elites create net value for society—meaning there is more to distribute—or extract value for their own benefit, to the detriment of the population. The index is produced by the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, in collaboration with international academic institutions, with the FEP responsible for analysing Portugal.
The EQx is based on the theory of development elites, where elites are defined as the dominant business models in the political economy of nations. This year’s edition analysed 151 countries, using 149 indicators grouped into four main dimensions: economic power, political power, economic value, and political value.
Portugal’s index experienced the largest annual drop since its inception in 2020, falling five places in the ranking to 30th out of 151 countries, equalling its lowest previous positions (in 2023 and 2021). Nevertheless, Portugal remained within the top quintile of countries.
The deterioration in Portugal’s performance in EQx2025 was primarily due to a negative trend in the Power sub-index, especially regarding the economic power of the elites. A notable drop occurred in the “creative destruction” pillar—which assesses the dynamic renewal of the economic fabric—due to the inclusion of two new indicators on private investment in artificial intelligence (AI), an area where Portugal is poorly ranked. This reveals difficulties in attracting investment in crucial technologies for innovation.
The Value sub-index also contributed significantly to the overall decline, accounting for about 49% of the total deterioration. This result mainly reflects the loss of economic value, highlighting a series of persistent structural weaknesses, including: weak labour productivity growth, high youth unemployment, brain drain, low labour force participation, and challenges in accessing housing.
Although the political power and political value components had limited impact on the overall decline (at an aggregate level), there were significant movements in their respective indicators, some positive and others negative, which tended to offset each other. In the realm of political power, negative effects from deteriorating indicators related to corruption, income inequality, academic freedom, and regulatory complexity were balanced by improvements in press freedom, women’s empowerment, wealth distribution, regulatory quality, and human rights. In terms of political value, notable negative trends were seen in indicators for online public services, substance abuse mortality rate, and tax collection efficiency, along with the continued high rate of corporate tax (remaining at 114th position), which are causes for concern. However, there were improvements in indicators such as the public debt ratio—with Portugal rising from 137th to 63rd position—and environmental performance.
In retrospect, the evolution of Portugal’s elite quality in 2025 confirms a trend of deterioration that has intensified since the pre-pandemic period, reflecting significant losses in economic value generation capacity, which outweigh gains in political value and, particularly, in political and economic power—although the latter was especially penalised in this edition, as noted. It is concluded that the declining quality of elites—linked to internal structural weaknesses that underpin an uncompetitive economic model—hinders an effective response to increasingly complex global challenges.
Finally, on the international level, Singapore remains at the top of the ranking, while the United States registers the greatest improvement this year, rising to 2nd place thanks to strong performance in AI indicators. Switzerland is overtaken and falls to 3rd place. Only three European countries (Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Germany) remain in the Top 10, which now includes Israel and the United Arab Emirates. China, thanks to rapid progress in AI, climbs to 19th place—an extraordinary result for a middle-income country. Noteworthy are India’s rise to 60th and Brazil’s fall to 72nd, reflecting a growing global reconfiguration in how elites create—or extract—value within their societies.
The editors of the EQx at the University of St. Gallen, Tomas Casas and Guido Cozzi, stress that elite quality is a crucial driver of economic development, as it shapes both inclusive and extractive systems. The index offers a unique perspective on a country’s sustainable value creation and its long-term growth potential.
The full EQx2025 analysis for all countries is available here.
