The NextGen Value Creation Barometer measures the extent to which national economic and elite business models around the world create or deplete value for the next generation.

Through its annual main symposium and its year-round dialogue initiatives and publications, the St. Gallen Symposium aims to foster leadership with the next generation in mind. A key aspect of this work is to achieve greater intergenerational fairness and sustainable value creation for the next generation.

In light of multiple ecological crises, rapid technological change and rising inequities, such fairness has been severely challenged. In order to drive a global conversation and action on sustainable value creation, the St. Gallen Symposium has partnered with the Elite Quality Index (EQx) to develop a unique measure of intergenerational fairness across countries.

The NextGen Value Creation Barometer (find the full findings here) has been jointly designed by the St. Gallen Symposium and the EQx team to provide insights on key dimensions of intergenerational fairness and how the val­ue creation business models of different countries compare in this regard. The Barometer is a unique global assessment in terms of its framework, mea­surements, and implications. Its findings will help to raise awareness among stakeholders in business, policy, academia and civil society—as well as the general public—on the need for greater intergenerational equity, while encouraging ambi­tious actions to create value creation business models with the next generation in mind.

The Barometer uses five equally weighted catego­ries, comprising a total of 20 component Indicators (out of the 120 Indicators included in the full EQx), as measurements to highlight intergenerational relationships, both in terms of value creation and extractive transfers.

The first category, Sustainability and Natural Capital, focuses on the extent to which dominant elite business models deplete or preserve natural resources and ecosystems for future gener­ations. The second category, Equitable Opportunities, mea­sures the distribution of economic opportunities across genera­tions, focusing on factors such as social mobility, youth unemployment and government debt. The third category, Edu­cation and Human Capital, stresses the importance of the pres­ent generation’s value creation for the next, in terms of invest­ments in—and inclusive access to—high-quality learning and education. The fourth category, Health and Well-Being, mea­sures the quality and key outcomes of national health care sys­tems, while the fifth category, Innovation and Technology, ex­plores the capacity provided to the next generation to drive scientific discovery and develop disruptive business models.

Some of the results, such as the fol­lowing highlights, might be surprising:

First, the NextGen EQx-Barometer rankings differ from those of the complete EQx. That is, the intergenerational value relationship is a distinct social phenomenon warranting dis­crete attention, research, and action.

The top 14 countries in the ranking are diverse but gener­ally small nations—with the exception of the UK (rank # 7), Australia (rank # 9) and Germany (# 13). This begs the question of why smaller po­litical economies appear to care more about the future gener­ation than large economies.

Sweden (for Europe), New Zealand (for the Pacific), Israel (for the MENA region), Singapore (for Asia), Canada (for North America), Kenya (for Sub-Saharan Africa) and Chile (for South America) are the regional champions of the Next­Gen EQx-Barometer and offer important lessons for their neighbors.

The United States (rank # 29) scores much lower than expected and considerably worse than in the full EQx (rank # 15). Despite the fact that its advanced technologies and innovation system creates enormous amounts of value, the overall focus of elites in the world’s largest economy seems to be on the present, not the future, with a high level of government debt, low levels of social mobility, and unequal access to health care.

Many highly ranked countries do well in most areas, but this is not true across the board. For instance, many score poor­ly for Health and Well-Being because of high rates of suicide and substance abuse that disproportionally affect the young. As an illustration, although Sweden leads the overall NextGen EQx-Barometer, its Health ranking is # 58; for Switzerland, the respective outcomes are # 4 and # 40; and for the US, # 29 and # 129. The inheritance left for the next generation is mul­tidimensional, and even countries scoring highly must continue to address all of the extractive aspects of their relationship with future generations.

The NextGen EQx-Barometer offers a comprehensive view of the intergenerational relationship, highlighting what works and what doesn’t. For instance, New Zealand (rank # 2) scores very well in Education and Human Capital (rank # 3) and in Equitable Opportunities (rank # 5). Yet, its large per-capita carbon footprint and insufficient climate policies highlight areas of concern for the next generation. The con­ceptual framework supports a refined interpretation of the results and the design of actionable projects.

Given that many intergen­erational challenges are deeply embedded in the fabric of the political economy, the findings should inform policy initiatives as well as the transformation of elite business models towards more sustainable value creation.

Read and download the full NextGen Value Creation Barometer.

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Felix Rüdiger, Prof. Tomas Casas i Klett