Income and purchasing power
Earned capital is a figure measured and published annually by most countries. It is the gross domestic product, the sum of all domestically generated income. If you convert this income to the number of inhabitants, you get a value that is hardly comparable. This is because income is not measurable over different countries if the money cannot be used to buy the same things.
An income can, therefore, only be compared if the respective countries' price structure is considered. A rented apartment for $500 per month may be standard in many countries, but in a poor developing country, you can purchase half a palace for the same money but buy a sparse little room, at best, in a rich country like Singapore. If we now adjust incomes for purchasing power, we obtain an internationally comparable fictitious currency: the PPP dollar, which stands for Purchasing Power Parity.
The calculations in this table are based on data from 2022. Evaluations for later years are expected in the first months of the following year when the economic data have been collected and published.
Wealth in small countries
It is unsurprising that so many small countries are in the top ranks. The top 20 richest countries include 14 countries with fewer than 10 million inhabitants. Most small countries are not internationally-positioned industrial nations, but generate most of their money from financial products. For example, Qatar and the Arab Emirates sit on huge oil reserves. In Europe, Luxembourg and Ireland are known for providing safe and tax-efficient homes for global players, such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and many others. Many of the countries ranked highly here are also considered tax havens.
At the same time, many small states are much less expensive to supply to the population because transport routes or cables are quickly laid. Providing a country like Luxembourg with nationwide high-speed Internet is completely different than in the US or Australia.
From this point of view, the fantastic rating of the USA (tenth place) is surprising, but Germany (19th) and Australia (20th) are also well placed.
Read also:
The poorest countries in the world. Life below poverty line
Macau, Las Vegas of the East
Macau is an exception. There is no oil, and financial products are not a focus of the economy. The country consists of two small islands that, together, are just half the size of Manhattan. Instead, dozens of huge casinos are spread out here, making many times the revenue of Las Vegas. Since gambling is banned in China and Hong Kong, some 3 million tourists flock to the small country monthly.
* The marked countries are not independent and sovereign states, but dependent territories of other states. Cf. also our article What is a country?
