GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

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A country's gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita is the PPP value of all final goods and services produced within an economy in a given year, divided by the average (or mid-year) population for the same year. This is similar to nominal GDP per capita but adjusted for the cost of living in each country.

Not to be confused with List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita.
See also: List of countries by average wage

Countries or territories by GDP (PPP) per capita in 2023
  >$60,000
  $50,000 – $60,000
  $40,000 – $50,000
  $30,000 – $40,000
  $20,000 – $30,000
  $10,000 – $20,000
  $5,000 – $10,000
  $2,500 – $5,000
  $1,000 – $2,500
  <$1,000
  No data

In 2019, the estimated average GDP per capita (PPP) of all of the countries of the world was Int$ 18,381.[lower-alpha 1] For rankings regarding wealth, see list of countries by wealth per adult.

Method

The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita figures on this page are derived from PPP calculations. Such calculations are prepared by various organizations, including the IMF and the World Bank. As estimates and assumptions have to be made, the results produced by different organizations for the same country are not hard facts and tend to differ, sometimes substantially, so they should be used with caution.

Comparisons of national wealth are frequently made based on nominal GDP and savings (not just income), which do not reflect differences in the cost of living in different countries (see List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita); hence, using a PPP basis is arguably more useful when comparing generalized differences in living standards between economies because PPP takes into account the relative cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries, rather than using only exchange rates, which may distort the real differences in income.

This is why GDP (PPP) per capita is often considered one of the indicators of a country's standard of living,[3][4] although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. (See Standard of living and GDP.)

GDP (PPP) and GDP (PPP) per capita are usually measured by international dollar, which is a hypothetical currency that has the same purchasing power in every economy as the U.S. dollar in the United States.

Table

All figures are in current international dollars, and rounded to the nearest whole number.

The table initially ranks each country or territory with their latest available year's estimates, and can be reranked by any of the sources.

* Nearly all country links in the table connect to articles titled "Income in (country or territory)" or to "Economy of (country or territory)".

More information Country/Territory, UN Region ...

Footnotes

  1. There is no explicit "GDP (PPP) per capita" World estimate provided by the IMF. For this figure, the GDP (PPP) world value[lower-roman 2] has been divided by the global population according to the IMF.[lower-roman 3]
  3. "IMF DataMapper / Datasets / World Economic Outlook (October 2023) / Population". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  1. [n 1]
    The EU is included because it is much more than a free-trade association like ASEAN, NAFTA, or Mercosur. -- See: "The World Factbook". CIA. 2014. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2022. Although the EU is not a federation in the strict sense, it is far more than a free-trade association such as ASEAN, NAFTA, or Mercosur, and it has certain attributes associated with independent nations: its flag, currency (for some members), and law-making abilities, as well as diplomatic representation and a common foreign and security policy in its dealings with external partners. Thus, the inclusion of basic intelligence on the EU has been deemed appropriate as a new, separate entity in The World Factbook. -- However, because the EU is an organization and not a sovereign state, it does not receive a ranking in this list.
  2. [n 2]
    Data is for the area controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
  3. [n 3]
    IMF and CIA figures exclude Taiwan and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
  4. [n 4]
    World Bank figures exclude the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
  5. [n 5]
    Excludes data for Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
  6. [n 6]
    Excludes data for Transnistria.
  7. [n 7]
    Figures exclude the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.
  8. [n 8]
    Includes Western Sahara.
  9. [n 9]
    Referred to as "Cabo Verde".
  10. [N 10]
    Referred to as "West Bank and Gaza" in the IMF and World Bank reports.
  11. [N 11]
    CIA registers 2 separate entries for Palestine: "West Bank" and "Gaza Strip". Figures for West Bank include the Gaza Strip -- see "The World Factbook - West Bank". CIA.gov. 15 November 2022.
  12. [N 12]
    Referred to as "Burma".

Expanding the coverage of illegal economic activities in euro area national accounts

The share of the shadow economy is significant in many European countries, ranging from less than 10 to over 40 per cent of GDP.[12] Since 2014, EU member states have been encouraged by Eurostat, the official statistics body, to include some illegal activities.[13][14][15]

Distorted GDP-per-capita for tax havens

Main articles: Corporate haven § GDP-per-capita tax haven proxy, and Corporate haven § Distorted GDP/GNP

There are many natural economic reasons for GDP-per-capita to vary between jurisdictions (e.g. places rich in oil and gas tend to have high GDP-per-capita figures). However, it is increasingly being recognized that tax havens, or corporate tax havens, have distorted economic data which produces artificially high, or inflated, GDP-per-capita figures.[16] It is estimated that over 15% of global jurisdictions are tax havens (see tax haven lists).[17] An IMF investigation estimates that circa 40% of global foreign direct investment flows, which heavily influence the GDP of various jurisdictions, are described as "phantom" transactions.[18]

A stunning $12 trillion—almost 40 per cent of all foreign direct investment positions globally—is completely artificial: it consists of financial investment passing through empty corporate shells with no real activity. These investments in empty corporate shells almost always pass through well-known tax havens. The eight major pass-through economies—the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hong Kong SAR, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, and Singapore—host more than 85 per cent of the world's investment in special purpose entities, which are often set up for tax reasons.

— "Piercing the Veil", International Monetary Fund, June 2018[18]

In 2017, Ireland's economic data became so distorted by U.S. multinational tax avoidance strategies (see leprechaun economics), also known as BEPS actions, that Ireland effectively abandoned GDP (and GNP) statistics as credible measures of its economy, and created a replacement statistic called modified gross national income (or GNI*). Ireland is one of the world's largest corporate tax havens.

Ireland has, more or less, stopped using GDP to measure its economy. And on current trends [because Irish GDP is distorting EU-28 aggregate data], the eurozone taken as a whole may need to consider something similar.

— Brad Setser, Council on Foreign Relations, "Ireland exports its Leprechaun", 25 April 2018[19]

The statistical distortions created by the impact on the Irish National Accounts of the global assets and activities of a handful of large multinational corporations have now become so large as to make a mockery of conventional uses of Irish GDP.

— Patrick Honohan, ex-Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, 13 July 2016[20]

A list of the top 15 GDP-per-capita countries from 2016 to 2017, contains most of the major global tax havens (see GDP-per-capita tax haven proxy for more detail):

More information Rank, Country/Territory ...

See also

Notes

  1. There have been no exclusive estimates for the world average by the IMF. For calculating 2019 data, the total GDP estimate by IMF[1] has been divided by the total population estimate by United Nations Population Prospects.[2]

References

  1. [1]
    "World Economic Outlook Database, 2019". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  2. [2]
    ""Overall total population" – World Population Prospects: The 2019 Revision" (xslx). population.un.org (custom data acquired via website). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  3. [3]
    "Sarkozy attacks focus on economic growth (French president urges more emphasis on quality of life)", The Guardian, 14 September 2009.
  4. [4]
    "Alternative progress indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means towards sustainable development"[dead link]
  5. [5]
    "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2023". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  6. [6]
    "WEO Database, October 2023. Report for Selected Countries and Subjects: World, E.U." IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  7. [7]
    "GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  8. [8]
    "Country Comparisons - Real GDP per capita". CIA.gov. The World Factbook. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  9. [9]
    "The World Factbook - European Union". CIA.gov. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  10. [10]
    "The World Factbook - World". CIA.gov. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  11. [11]
    "WEO Database, October 2023. Report for Selected Countries and Subjects: Syria". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  12. [12]
    "Explaining the Shadow Economy in Europe: Size, Causes and Policy Options". International Monetary Fund. November 2019.
  13. [13]
    "Sizing Up Black Markets and Red-Light Districts for G.D.P." The New York Times. 9 July 2014.
  14. [14]
    "GDP to include illegal activity". Financier Worldwide Magazine. August 2014.
  15. [15]
    "Handbook on the compilation of statistics on illegal economic activities in national accounts and balance of payments". Eurostat. 6 March 2018.
  16. [16]
    "How tax havens turn economic statistics into nonsense". Quartz. 11 June 2018.
  17. [17]
    Dharmapala, Dhammika; Hines, James R. Jr. (2009). "Which Countries Become Tax Havens?" (PDF). Journal of Public Economics. 93 (9–10): 1058–1068. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.07.005. S2CID 16653726. The paper implicitly adopts the "smaller" tax haven approach, i.e., disregarding larger countries that have either low taxes rates (for example, Russia), or systems of taxation which permit them to be used to structure tax avoidance schemes (for example, the United Kingdom). It also excludes non-sovereign tax havens (for example, Delaware or Labuan).
  18. [18]
    "Piercing the Veil, Finance & Development, June 2018, Vol. 55, No. 2". IMF Finance & Development. June 2018.
  19. [19]
    "Ireland Exports its Leprechaun". Council on Foreign Relations. 11 May 2018.
  20. [20]
    "The Irish National Accounts: Towards some do's and don'ts". irisheconomy.ie. 13 July 2016.
  21. [21]
    "PPP (current international $)". data.worldbank.org. World Bank. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  22. [22]
    "World Bank, International Comparison Program database". Retrieved 10 April 2018.
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