Insights #3: Which economies create the most value? Economic profits and the importance of taking non-listed firms into account

Fair cross-country comparisons of the value created by capitalist economies require accounting for differences in the propensity of firms to list on stockmarkets. We compute the shares of companies listed by country, year, and asset size category and find significant cross-country variation. Adjusting for these differences changes rankings of nations based on total economic profit generated in plausible ways. Adding the contribution of non-listed firms raised the total economic profit generated in the 21 economies studied in the Crux of Capitalism project by 35% on average for the 2014-2022 period. This correction does not alter the US primacy in global economic value creation.