Cadence and Score Revisions

How often is the report published?

The Industry Economics & Competitiveness report is published monthly, with each edition superseding the prior one to provide a continuous, regularly spaced record over time. Each edition focuses on one country, benchmarked against the full set of 33 covered countries, giving the report a steady release rhythm while keeping every edition tightly scoped to a single national profile. Exact release dates follow the published release schedule, and once produced, each edition clears a final information review before it reaches subscribers in multiple delivery formats — report PDFs, the web API, and spreadsheet or BI add-ins.

Why is there a four-month data lag in the main report?

The analytical pillars carry a data lag of roughly four months. Those pillars draw on official trade and economic statistics, which are themselves released one to three months after the period they describe, and Intratec then applies processing and validation before scoring. The result is that competitiveness scores reflect conditions about four months prior, ensuring each score rests on verified official data rather than provisional estimates.

Within a single monthly edition the timeline follows a fixed rhythm. Inputs are collected late in a given month, then prepared, aligned to a common basis, and validated at the start of the following month, so each edition's scored pillars settle about four months behind the period they describe. The reference datasets sit at the other end of the same timeline: built largely from modeled cost inputs rather than lagged statistics, they stay current and extend to a six-month forecast tail.

Why do reference datasets stay fresher than the main report?

Reference datasets skip the four-month lag because they draw on modeled cost inputs rather than lagged official trade statistics, so they can be updated — and even projected six months ahead — while the scored pillars still wait on verified official data. See What are the reference datasets? for the full explanation of why they are built this way and what the Forecast (F) label on their projected months means.

Why do scores and ranks change, and how are revisions treated?

A score or rank can shift for two different reasons. Month to month, a score changes as underlying data updates for either the focal country or its peers; because rank is a relative position, a country can move up or down even when its own data is unchanged, simply because the peer set has moved. Separately, when methodology or data for Industry Economics & Competitiveness is revised — for example, when official statistics arrive and replace earlier estimates — the historical series may be restated so that trends remain comparable over time. Every such change, whether a routine monthly update or a broader revision, is documented in the monthly Release Notes; the Revisions page carries the full restatement policy.