List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
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| > 50,000 35,000–50,000 20,000–35,000 10,000–20,000 | 5,000–10,000 2,000–5,000 < 2,000 No data |
This page is a list of the countries of the world by gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita, i.e., the purchasing power parity (PPP) value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given year, divided by the average (or mid-year) population for the same year.
As of 2017, the average GDP per capita (PPP) of all of the countries of the world is US$17,300.[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 International Monetary Fund 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 on the basis of 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 nations 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,[2][3] although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. (See Standard of living and GDP.)
Note that the Irish GDP data below is subject to material distortion by the tax planning activities of foreign multinationals in Ireland. 2015 Irish GDP was over 150% of 2015 Irish gross national income (GNI). To address this, in 2017 the Central Bank of Ireland created "modified GNI" (or GNI*) as a more appropriate statistic, and the OECD and IMF have adopted it for Ireland. 2015 Irish GDP is 143% of 2015 Irish GNI*.
Lists of countries and dependencies
All figures are in current international dollars, and rounded up or down to the nearest whole number.
Several economies that are not considered to be sovereign states (such as various dependent territories) are included because they appear in the sources. These non-sovereign entities, former countries and other special groupings are in italics. They are listed in dollar order, but are not given a numerical rank.
| International Monetary Fund (2019 estimates)[4] | World Bank (2018)[5][6] | Central Intelligence Agency (1993–2017)[7] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Distorted GDP-per-capita for tax havens
There are many natural economic reasons for GDP-per-capita to vary between jurisdictions (e.g. places rich in Oil & Gas reserves 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.[10] It is estimated that over 15% of global jurisdictions are tax havens (see tax haven lists).[11] An IMF investigation estimates that circa 40% of global FDI flows, which heavily influence the GDP of various jurisdictions, are described as "phantom" transactions.[12]
A stunning $12 trillion—almost 40 percent 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 percent 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[12]
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 own 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.
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.
A list of the top 15 GDP-per-capita countries from 2016–2017, contains most of the major global tax havens (see GDP-per-capita tax haven proxy for more detail):
| International Monetary Fund (2017) | World Bank (2016)[5][6] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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See also
- List of countries by past and projected GDP (PPP) per capita
- List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita
- List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita growth rate
- List of IMF ranked countries by GDP
- Quality of life
- Big Mac Index
- Government spending
- Corporate tax havens
- Nations and intelligence
Notes
References
- ^ "World GDP – per capita (PPP) – Economy". www.indexmundi.com.
- ^ "Sarkozy attacks focus on economic growth (French president urges more emphasis on quality of life)", The Guardian, 14-09-2009.
- ^ "Alternative progress indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means towards sustainable development"
- ^ "World Economic Outlook - GDP per capita". International Monetary Fund. October 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
- ^ a b "PPP (current international $)". data.worldbank.org. World Bank. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
- ^ a b "World Bank, International Comparison Program database". Retrieved 10 April 2018.
- ^ GDP – per capita (PPP), The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed on 7 March 2014.
- ^ "World Economic Outlook Database, 2019". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
- ^ ""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.
- ^ "How tax havens turn economic statistics into nonsense". Quartz. 11 June 2018.
- ^ 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. The paper implicitly adopts the "smaller" tax haven approach, i.e., disregarding larger countries which 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).
- ^ a b "Piercing the Veil, FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, JUNE 2018, VOL. 55, NO. 2". IMF Finance & Development. June 2018.
- ^ "Ireland Exports its Leprechaun". Council on Foreign Relations. 11 May 2018.
- ^ "The Irish National Accounts: Towards some do's and don'ts". irisheconomy.ie. 13 July 2016.
