(原文發表於2024年8月5日)

SORTING COUNTRIES into rich and poor can be difficult.   Measures such as GDP are affected by population size (more people generally mean more output).   But adjusting for population alone is not enough.   Dollar income per person does not account for differences in prices between countries (a Big Mac, for example, will set you back more in some places than in others, even after converting into dollars).   Nor does it account for productivity (overall output per hour worked).

将国家划分为富国和穷国可能很困难。GDP等指标受到人口规模的影响(人口越多通常意味着产出越多),但仅根据人口进行调整是不够的。人均美元收入没有将国家之间的价格差异算入其中(例如，一个麦当劳巨无霸在一些地方比在另一些地方要贵，即使换算成美元后也是如此)，也没有考虑到生产率(每小时工作的总产出)。

To get a fuller picture, The Economist therefore ranks countries by three measures: dollar income per person, income adjusted for local prices (known as purchasing-power parity, or PPP) and income per hour worked.   See where each country ranks below.

为了获得更全面的情况，《经济学人》通过三个指标对各国进行排名:人均美元收入、根据当地价格调整后的收入(即购买力平价或PPP)和每小时工作收入。下面看看每个国家的排名。

Take America first.   Its GDP has been the largest at market exchange rates for over a century.   But by income per person it falls to sixth, behind Luxembourg (first) and Switzerland (second).   Adjusting for America’s higher prices pushes it down to ninth;   accounting for its long workdays and limited holidays, to tenth. Singapore and Brunei exhibit some of the biggest differences between each measure, and Macau, a special administrative region of China, had the biggest increase in GDP per person compared with last year.

先看看美国。一个多世纪以来，美国的GDP一直是全球最高的。但按人均收入计算，美国排名第六，落后于卢森堡(第一)和瑞士(第二)。根据美国较高的物价调整后，其排名降至第九位;由于其长工作日和有限的假期，美国排名第十。新加坡和文莱各项指标之间的差异最大，而特别行政区澳门的人均GDP与去年相比增幅最大。

GDP per person in Burundi is just $200 a year—the lowest of any country in the ranking.  It remains in last place even after adjusting for its cheap prices and below-average working hours (almost half its people are under the age of 14).  Sierra Leone or the Central African Republic comes next, depending on which measure is used.  Poorer countries tend to have large informal economies, however, which makes their total output and working hours harder to gauge.

布隆迪的人均GDP仅为每年200美元，是排名最低的国家。即使根据其低廉的物价和低于平均水平的工作时间(几乎一半的工人年龄在14岁以下)进行调整之后，仍然排在最后一名。塞拉利昂或中非共和国紧随其后，这取决于采用哪种衡量标准。然而，贫穷国家的非正规经济规模庞大，其总产出和工作时间难以衡量。

Our ranking excludes some tiny overseas territories, such as Bermuda.  It also excludes Ireland, where GDP calculations are a bit odd.  Other factors also affect our ranking: we only provide average GDP per person, for example, but differences between the highest and lowest earners can vary significantly.  In some countries official data may be misleading.  And factors such as savings rates, salaries earned abroad and personal assets are also missing from our data, and could skew personal-income results.

《经济学人》的排名不包括一些小的海外领地，比如百慕大。也不包括爱尔兰，那里的GDP计算方式有点奇怪。其他因素也会影响《经济学人》的排名:例如，《经济学人》只提供人均GDP，但最高和最低收入者之间可能存在巨大差异。一些国家的官方数据可能具有误导性。此外，《经济学人》也没有将储蓄率、海外收入和个人资产等因素考虑在内，可能会扭曲个人收入结果。