Germans are benefiting more from their economic rebound than Americans are from the US recovery thanks to greater investment in education and infrastructure.

In China, rapid economic growth is being hindered by pollution and other factors and translating only slowly into broader economic “wellbeing” while in India, Asia’s new growth champion, progress has been even slower.

These are some of the key findings of the latest attempt by the Boston Consulting Group to compile a broad measure of economic “wellbeing” that goes beyond the usual metrics of gross domestic product, inflation and unemployment used by policy makers. To do so the BCG index takes into account investment in health, education and infrastructure as well as more unusual measures such as the volatility of GDP growth and inequality.

The consulting group’s 2015 Sustainable Economic Development Assessment includes some predictable results. Topping the list of 148 economies for wellbeing is Norway. Five of the top 10 countries for economic wellbeing are Nordic and Singapore is the only non-European country in the top decile.

At the very bottom of the list lies the Central African Republic, a country devastated by conflict in recent years.

But it also contains some thought-provoking observations.

The US comes in at number 17 “primarily because of its weak showing in income equality”, the BCG report’s authors write. It lags behind the rest of the world in eight of the 10 dimensions measured, particularly in infrastructure.

Despite the longstanding view that the US is a land of opportunity it turns out, according to BCG, that it is below average in its ability to convert both wealth and growth into a broader wellbeing.

The comparison with Germany is particularly striking. Between 2006 and 2013 both recorded an average GDP growth of 1.1 per cent (measured by purchasing power parity). But Germany did a much better job of translating that into a wider economic wellbeing.

The biggest economy in Europe’s ability to convert growth into wellbeing was equivalent, according to BCG, to an economy growing at an average rate of 6.2 per cent. In the case of the US it was equivalent to that delivered by growth of only 0.5 per cent.

China recorded average growth of almost 12 per cent in PPP terms over the period measured, according to BCG, and had done a generally good job of translating the breakneck growth into economic wellbeing.

However, it ranked only 76th out of 148 largely because it fell below the global median in four separate measures: economic stability, income equality, governance and the environment. It had the lowest score of any economy in the BCG rankings with regard to the environment.

China also remained well above Asian rival India in its ability to translate growth into wellbeing, the study found.

India, wher growth is this year expected to overtake that of China, came in just 110th out of 148 on the BCG measure of broader economic wellbeing, putting it behind countries such as Guatemala, Ghana and Guyana.

India has been making progress in health, education and infrastructure and also in poverty reduction, the BCG authors note. It still, however, recorded subpar progress in other dimensions including the environment, economic stability and employment.