THE International Comparison Program (ICP) released its 2021 and revised 2017 results yesterday. The ICP is a worldwide statistical partnership which produces purchasing power parities (PPPs) and comparative price levels for participating economies to compare their size of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its main components internationally, taking account of differences in price levels. 

The economies of the current 38 OECD member countries accounted for about 46% of world GDP in 2021, broadly stable compared to 48% in 2017. More generally, shares of regions in world GDP did not change substantially between 2017 and 2021.

In 2021, China, the United States and India continued having the biggest GDP in the world, representing 19%, 15.5% and 7.2% of world GDP, respectively, expressed in PPPs. Within the OECD, the distribution of countries remained broadly the same between 2017 and 2021, with the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom being the largest OECD economies.

In terms of GDP per capita, Luxembourg remains the leader among OECD countries with 138 000 USD PPP in 2021, which reflects, however, a large share of cross-border workers. Some countries ranked lower relative to their OECD peers in 2021 compared to 2017. For instance, Iceland moved from the group of top six to a significantly lower position and Japan and Spain’s per capita GDP moved from around the median to around the lower third of OECD countries. On the other hand, Czechia, Slovenia, and Lithuania moved up, closer to OECD median. 

In terms of Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) per capita, a better-suited measure of material welfare covering goods and services consumed by households, the United States remained the top OECD country in 2021 with almost 53 000 USD PPP, followed by Luxembourg and Norway. Compared to 2017, some Nordic countries, notably Denmark and Sweden, as well as some Central and Eastern European countries e.g., Lithuania, Slovenia or Poland moved up relative to other OECD countries in 2021. Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Greece, on the other hand, moved further away from top OECD performers in 2021.

GDP price level indices, i.e., ratios of PPPs to a country’s exchange rate and indicators of a country’s relative price level, were higher than world average in 24 OECD countries in 2021 (Table 1). This means that these countries were more expensive than average world country.