Methodology Version 1.0. This page documents every component, weight, source, normalization step, and publication rule behind the StockFocus Institutional Reliability Score shown on retirement city pages.
| Component | Weight | Source | Normalization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rule of Law | 30% | World Justice Project Rule of Law Index | WJP overall score (0–1) × 100 |
| Political Stability and Absence of Violence | 25% | World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators | ((governance estimate + 2.5) ÷ 5) × 100, clamped to 0–100 |
| Public-Sector Corruption | 20% | Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index | CPI used directly (already 0–100) |
| Government Effectiveness | 15% | World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators | ((governance estimate + 2.5) ÷ 5) × 100, clamped to 0–100 |
| Civil Liberties and Protection from State Abuse | 10% | V-Dem Civil Liberties Index (approved open-data fallback) | V-Dem index (0–1) × 100 |
The score is the weighted sum of the five normalized components. World Bank WGI percentile ranks are never used as calculation inputs — only governance estimates.
| Score | Classification |
|---|---|
| 85–100 | Exceptional |
| 75–84 | Very Strong |
| 65–74 | Generally Reliable |
| 55–64 | Mixed |
| 45–54 | Elevated Concerns |
| 30–44 | Weak |
| 0–29 | Severe Concerns |
The StockFocus Institutional Reliability Score is a transparent 0–100 country-level estimate of how reliably a country's government, courts, laws, public institutions, property protections, and civil safeguards function for a long-term foreign resident or retiree.
It is not a crime score, a travel-warning score, or a prediction of war, coups, or future political events. It complements — and never replaces — the Safety and Crime score, the U.S. State Department Travel Advisory, the Healthcare score, the Cost of Living score, and the overall retirement ranking. All cities in the same country share the country's score: Lisbon, Porto, Braga, and Coimbra all inherit Portugal's country-level score.
The weighted score is calculated internally with full precision, then rounded to the nearest whole number for public display. The written classification is always assigned from the rounded display score, never the unrounded internal score. For example, an unrounded 84.6 rounds to a display score of 85 and is classified Exceptional; an unrounded 84.4 rounds to 84 and is classified Very Strong. Band boundaries are inclusive of their lower bound: exactly 85 is Exceptional, exactly 75 is Very Strong, exactly 65 is Generally Reliable.
All five components in a single score must come from the same observation year. The observation year (the year the underlying conditions were measured) is shown with every score and is distinct from the publication year (the year the source organization released the dataset) and from the score's last-updated date on StockFocus.
If a component is more than three observation years older than the score's observation year, it is treated as missing rather than silently mixed in.
If exactly one of the five components is unavailable, its weight is redistributed proportionally across the remaining components and the score is published with an is-estimated disclosure showing the available source count, the missing component, the original weighted coverage percentage, and a confidence level (High ≥100%, Moderate ≥80%, Limited ≥70%, otherwise Insufficient).
If two or more components are missing, no numerical score is published automatically — the card shows "Insufficient institutional data" instead. An administrator may publish a reviewed manual estimate, but it is visibly labeled as manually estimated and the calculated null result is preserved.
The trend compares the latest score with the score from three calendar years earlier, only when both endpoints use the same methodology version, the same civil-liberties source, and compatible source dataset releases. A difference of +3 or more is Improving, −3 or less is Weakening, otherwise Stable. When the endpoints are not comparable, the trend is shown as "Not Enough Comparable Data".
The U.S. State Department Travel Advisory level is displayed alongside the score where available but is never mathematically combined with it: the advisory is a current risk indicator, while the Institutional Reliability Score is a structural governance indicator.
External Risk Exposure is an admin-reviewed editorial label (with a source note and review date) and is likewise displayed separately, never blended into the number. Countries not yet assessed show "Not yet assessed", not a default value.
Used for: Rule of Law (30%)
Rule of Law data from the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index. The overall country score (0–1 scale) is used, multiplied by 100. WJP is an independent, multidisciplinary organization; use of its published index data here is informational with attribution.
Used for: Political Stability and Absence of Violence (25%); Government Effectiveness (15%)
Political Stability and Government Effectiveness data from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project (Kaufmann and Kraay). WGI governance estimates (approximately −2.5 to +2.5) are used — never percentile ranks — and rescaled to 0–100. WGI data are made available under open data terms; the WGI project does not endorse this derived score.
Used for: Public-Sector Corruption (20%)
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) © Transparency International. The CPI is already published on a 0–100 scale and is used directly. Higher CPI values indicate lower perceived public-sector corruption.
Used for: Civil Liberties and Protection from State Abuse (10%)
Civil liberties data from the V-Dem Institute's Civil Liberties Index (0–1 scale, multiplied by 100). V-Dem data are open for research and informational use with citation. V-Dem is the approved civil-liberties source for Methodology v1.0; Freedom House data are not used because written commercial-use permission has not been obtained.
The StockFocus Institutional Reliability Score is an informational estimate based on published international governance data. It is not a prediction of political events, personal safety, or investment outcomes, and it is not legal, financial, or immigration advice. Conditions can change; verify current information with official sources before making relocation decisions.