The world’s richest countries in 2023

From The Economist

Comparing the wealth of nations is harder than you might think. Countries with lots of people tend to have bigger economies, but that does not mean that individual incomes are high. Dollar income per person is the most common metric for sorting countries into rich and poor, but it does not account for international differences in prices. Nor does it account for how many hours people have to work to earn their wage. To provide a fuller picture, The Economist has created a global rich list using the latest available data on three measures: dollar income per person, adjusted income for local prices (known as purchasing-power parity, or ppp), and income per hour worked. See where each country ranks below.

The findings show how fickle economics can be. Take America. Its gdp is by far the largest at market exchange rates. But its income per person is only the seventh highest in the world, and eighth when adjusting for local prices. When accounting for the long workdays and limited holiday, it drops to 11th. China—the world’s second-largest economy in nominal terms—comes 65th by gdp per person and 96th by hours worked. Other countries with gruesome work cultures also see big shifts: South Korea ranks 31st on our first measure and 30th on our second, but 47th on our third.

In much of western Europe the trend goes in the opposite direction: places such as Belgium, Germany and Sweden fly up the rankings when their lower prices or enviable work-life balance are taken into account. Wages in Luxembourg go the furthest in local prices. And Norway has the world’s highest average income per hour worked. (See the top 20 countries in the chart above.)

These calculations will be imprecise. ppp conversions, for example, struggle to capture differences in the quality of goods and services. Methods for calculating hours worked may differ; it is especially hard to estimate them for poor countries with large informal sectors (read our full methodology here). And the data from some countries cannot be trusted. Some countries (notably China) have very high savings rates, so even their ppp-adjusted gdp per hour will not reflect their living standards. The ranking also captures people’s average incomes (what they earn), not their assets (what they already have). But the comparison offers a more complete assessment of the world’s richest countries than a focus on any single measure—it shows where your money goes furthest, and where long hours may not always pay off.