Last week the World Economic Forum, a Swiss think tank, announced that America fell to fifth from first place in its “Networked Readiness Index” for the information and communications technology sector. Singapore and three Scandinavian countries outpaced America. The results of the WEF study were widely disseminated in major newspapers and magazines, feeding our national economic inferiority complex.

Yet last week the Association of European Chambers of Commerce presented a study showing that Europe lags at least 20 years economically behind America. That study was widely reported in Europe, but less so here.

Studies with unflattering comparisons of the national economy grab headlines around the world and feed widespread national economic insecurity.

But an economically secure nation looks not to studies, but to the openness of its markets, the clarity and enforceability of its laws, and the health of its democratic institutions to gauge economic success. These economic foundations cannot be easily quantified, much less compared with other countries. A confident country looks at the successes of other countries and sees new trading partners, not sources of envy and consternation.

An economically insecure country, however, is beset with self-doubt. It will abandon the foundation of economic principles and define success by coveting its neighbor’s consumption. It is a nationalist form of “Keeping Up with the Joneses” no matter the expediencies necessary. Even prosperous nations can be afflicted with this national economic inferiority complex.

The economic basis for these comparative studies is often wanting. For example, the WEF study combines three component indexes: the “environment” for information and communications technology;” the “readiness of the community’s key stakeholders, “and “the usage of information and communications technology among these stakeholders.”

This bureaucratic gobbledygook should alert the reader that the results are not replicable. The WEF factors could easily be manipulated to place practically any country, including America, anywhere from first to 50th.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, an economic research institute based in Paris and supported by many governments including our own, also maintains dozens of annual measures of comparative international economic performance.

In most OECD measures, America does quite well. But the only OECD statistic widely known in American political circles is a measure of broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, where America places a dismal 11th, far behind first-place South Korea.

Many American politicians are unfamiliar with the OECD. This does not stop them from using this one OECD statistic to explain why our government must “do something about broadband” without pausing to consider whether either the statistic or the proposed remedy makes sense.

The same OECD has statistics that show that as long ago as 2003, nearly 80% of Americans had access to digital subscriber loop, just one form of broadband. If other forms of broadband access had been included [not measured by the OECD], practically all Americans had access to one or more broadband providers in 2003. There are many more providers today. We have many problems in America, but shortage of broadband is rarely among them.

A generation ago, international comparisons of technological performance may have reflected actual differences in the availability of plant, equipment, and know-how. This is no longer true. Today, Nokia, Cisco, Siemens, and every information and communications technology company sell products practically everywhere in the world. Some are first developed in the United States, others elsewhere.

And if a technology is not found in the United States, it is more for want of a willing buyer than a willing seller. American businesses evaluate all technologies and deploy only the most profitable. Deployment may be unprofitable for benign factors such as better alternative services already available to consumers – or for malignant reasons such as the uncertainty and unenforceability of American communications law.

Some Americans claim that we should provide a subsidy for broadband because at one time Korea did so. They could not be more wrong. The American communications sector needs to be more open with clearer rules, more easily enforced. We do not need to sacrifice our strong economic institutions to follow the Pied Piper of misleading international comparisons.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.