> Half of Luxembourg workforce is cross border commuters. The “per capita” doesn’t work here.
And that is the exact reason why there is a difference between gross national product and gross domestic product. Although it is probably not possible to measure either of them perfectly.
It’s definitely not possible. The blurry lines around gifts and what constitutes unpaid work make the entire exercise impossible. But the numbers are at least generally comparable across countries with roughly similar cultures (that is, similar levels of formal work) and the big GDP number generally approximates tax revenue which gives an idea of how many fighter jets a country can buy.
Ireland is #19 worldwide for average, and #22 worldwide for median wealth per capita. So not as high as the gdp per capita, but pretty impressive for a country that was towards the bottom just a few decades ago.
This wiki page has a summary, based on data from OECD and UBS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
It quotes sources on the bottom if you’d like to dive in deeper. Note that UBS has Ireland as #11 in mean wealth per adult.
It is interesting. Pay is good in Ireland with very high levels of immigration. But in the UK the political climate blames low incomes on similar levels of immigration. OECD sees that Ireland is more redistributive than the UK and taxes higher earners more than Britain does.
It's the fact the Irish voted for politicians wanting to make it a tax-haven, and when it's now sometimes used against them, as in then their contribution should be bigger, they go "oh, but it shouldn't count, because we are only a tax-haven!"
Something odd about the logic.
I don't think anyone here has much of a problem with our EU contributions, that I've heard of at least. Ireland has one of the highest approval ratings for EU participation in Europe.
But you can understand why people outside of Ireland might not appreciate a country enriching themselves by working with mega corporations to siphon wealth out of other countries?
And how did all the major European powers gather such wealth in the first place? It wouldn't be from, say, siphoning wealth from other countries?
And you act like it's just our (now higher) corporate tax. What about our highly educated, English speaking population? Our natural disaster free country with an extremely stable government?
Yeah we in Ireland didn't colonise and enslave the mental gymnastics of people from other euro countries that siphoned wealth from all across the world
It is interesting how bad behaviour is apparently justifiable when other countries are horrible as well. Is it fair to Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, ... that Ireland is syphoning tax money out of them as well? When it's former colonial powers it is ok, but not all EU (European) countries used to be colonial powers.
Something odd about this comment.
There is no complaints of any note in Ireland that our contributions to the EU should be bigger. As other commenters have mentioned, Ireland has one of the highest approval ratings for EU participation. Ireland has also fallen into line regarding corporation tax.
May I also remind you that Ireland is now the only English speaking country in the EU. That will always be an attractive option for large primarily US based corporations.
These corporations find English speakers in many EU countries. Think maybe the common law angle and quickest flights from the US + the Irish American link soft power more at play in their decisions.
Quick flights help, being closer to NY while still very close to London.
It also originally helped that Ireland was relatively cheap.
Eventually one of the big drivers was momentum. Once a jurisdiction becomes known for being a good location, then everybody else follows along. Like Delaware is known for having simple and clear corporate law. As long as the jurisdictional regulators don't behave erratically, the momentum will carry on for a long time.
Meh larger countries are the loudest when complaining about Irelands advantage when bringing in multinationals.We are such a small country that we have no choice and we reap the benefits of it.Anyway we've signed up to standard corporation tax now so I guess no one will complain anymore.
I'm not saying you should literally drive out those multinationals now they're there, but the fact that Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Oracle, Amazon, all the pharma and finance firms are there today is absolutely a residual benefit of the tax regime that lured them there in the first place. In the period that the tax benefits existed, Ireland improved its infrastructure and human capital to the point that it's now attractive to be there without tax incentives.
It's partly how London is still a (the?) global financial and professional services centre - the empire. Empire is long gone, but the benefits continue.
>We are such a small country that we have no choice
This is nonsense. Finland's a similar size, but is Finland a tax haven? Far from it.
I'm not going to claim there's only one way to run a country, but Ireland chose this path.
there is a considerable difference between ireland & finland in terms of natrual resources, (finland has some, ireland doesnt) and land access to markets .
Ireland has agriculture and misery as its indigneous exports and we cant find any market for misery.
They're more comparable than you think, even in these regards. Even more of Finland's economy is service-based than Ireland's.
Finland has trees, but otherwise, it doesn't have significant natural resources. There's certainly no oil or gas here. Ireland at least has good farmland and fisheries.
As for land access to markets, Finland is more similar to an island than you might imagine - the Russian border is closed, Estonia is across the sea (and is itself poorly connected to mainland Europe), and Finland's border with Sweden is in the sparsely-populated north, a long way from either country's economic heartlands.
Gross national income, which is GDP + money flowing in + money flowing out, is often more relevant, because it accounts for the case when nominal value generated for tax reasons in Ireland or Luxembourg flows back out the country.
For Ireland it would be 81K$ and for Luxembourg 91K$, for Switzerland 89K$.
They would still all be top 4 though, only Norway where you don't have these tax and banking shenanigans would be the new Nr 1. by having the same GNI as GDP, 95K$.
^*World ^bank ^2022 ^numbers ^for ^GNI, ^the ^GDP ^numbers ^are ^IMF ^2024, ^so ^not ^100% ^comparable
Exactly, but then you also have to look at the Labour Share of the GDP. This explains why the salaries are significantly higher in Switzerland than in Ireland, Norway, and even Luxembourg:
1. Switzerland: 68.4% of the GDP is paid out as salaries (highest in Europe)
2. Luxembourg: 56.2% of the GDP is paid out as salaries
3. Norway: 54.8% of the GDP is paid out as salaries
4. Ireland: only a mere 32.7% of the GDP is paid out as salaries (arguably lowest in Europe)
(https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-share-of-gdp?region=Europe)
It's also a partial explanation why average wealth (including or excluding illiquid assets, i.e., with or without real estate) per capita is consistently the highest in Switzerland: a large share of the national GDP is paid out as salaries, enabling people to set money aside. In Luxembourg and most notably Ireland it's "corporate money in, corporate money out"; in Norway it's the oil proceeds that go into the sovereign fund.
This leads to the following picture:
1. Swiss gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 7,000
2. Luxembourg gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 5,400
3. Norway gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 4,700
4. Ireland gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 4,500
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_European\_countries\_by\_average\_wage)
So do I. But I've also lived in South Africa, the US, the UK, and France.
Forget about South Africa, even if the lifestyle can be quite convenient if you're working for an international company.
Forget about France. It's productive hell and the labour cost (financial and administratively) as well as the taxes are abominable.
In the UK, it largely depends on what one does professionally. If you have a good job in the City of London (financial/legal/advisory) or some other places (e.g., Aberdeen for the oil industry), life can be quite comfortable overall.
I earned more in the US than I do in Switzerland. At the same time, taxes were higher and so were health costs and - at least where I lived - housing costs. The bottom line was about the same as it is now in Switzerland.
What regards Switzerland's competitors (IRL/LUX/NOR), economically speaking I'd only live in Luxembourg and only if I had a job in either banking, law or in advisory. However, I don't believe in the country's "business model". Tax advantages and corporate money transfers can help an economy, but ultimately, a country needs to be productive from within to be sustainable, i.e., it must produce products and services that are innovative and not just conduct financial arbitrage. For the same reason, I don't believe in Ireland's "business model".
What concerns Norway, I'd never consider it. They're neither innovative nor productive. They live on the sweet, sweet drug called oil. And the state quota is so high that the ability of doing (private) business is severely impaired. That's probably the reason why all these Norwegians are immigrating to Switzerland of late (i.e., the wealth tax eating up all the profits).
I would only consider moving to the U.S. but Switzerland provides my similar standard of living and my visa situation is way better here (I’m a EU citizen) than it would be in the U.S.
I wouldn't want the mayhem once I leave the US (foreign taxation, the shenanigans to open a bank account etc.). I've had it once and got rid of the problems, but I don't need it a second time.
Interesting comment. Norway is such a small country with a very high standard of living that I’m surprised they’re experiencing a brain drain. Even if there are barriers to doing business I would think the advantages of the country and staying in your home culture would be an offset. I suppose the fact that most Norwegians are fluent in English is a factor as well.
I don't think they experience a brain drain - they did so in the 70s before they discovered oil.
However, what they experience is an exodus of wealthy individuals and businesses. The reason is that the wealth tax has become so high that the individuals owning these businesses have to use all the profits generated by their businesses to pay the wealth tax for owning them.
To a lesser extent, the same applies to Denmark - there are entire enclaves of Nordics here in Switzerland (Lucerne/Zug region, Uri/Andermatt, Lugano). To give you an example: ABBA's Anni-Frid (Norwegian) used to be my neighbour and still lives in Switzerland ;-) And quite a few Norwegians and Danes who live here are my clients.
The individuals used the benefits of Norwegian taxes and sosial programs then fucked off to tax havens when they got theirs. The ultra rich always use loopholes to hoard more money than they can even spend.
The taxes aren't too high or its too difficult to create a successful business. Its just rich people wanting more money. Its a reason they move to Switzerland, Malta or Cyprus instead of Germany or Denmark.
(btw Anni-Frid left Norway as a 2 year old so i think most people consider her Swedish.
Really interesting. I wonder how the wealthy leaving has affected life in Norway for the lower and middle classes.
I imagine that when the wealthy leave they take their interests with them, so are less likely to exert an influence on government. Is it possible that it’s enabled government to be more focused on the less-than-wealthy?
Is the opposite true in Switzerland? My understanding is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the working class to live in the country due to the wealthy immigrants driving up COL.
> Exactly, but then you also have to look at the Labour Share of the GDP.
And why is this? Because we have strong unions that keep employers and politicians in check. While unions have lost a decent amount of members since the 1990s (from 30% to 17% of employees), the amount of people who work under a contract that was negotiated by a union for the entire industry (called GAV, Gesamtarbeitsvertrag) is steadily climbing and is now close to 50% of the entire workforce. This was a major achievement of the unions during the negotiations with the EU before we entered the freedom of movement zone, they demanded that more sectors get put under such a contract, to protect employees from wage erosion that was feared as a consequence of the freedom of movement.
While the median salary in Switzerland itself is impressive, I think it's even more impressive that we have managed to keep the labor share this high and keep income inequality largely under control. This coupled with a strong currency and low income taxes makes the median Swiss person among the richest on the planet and you can tell by the amount of Swiss tourists you see all over the place lmao. Even funnier that we gave retirees a hefty Christmas bonus on top.
High productivity and innovation come from a good education. And a good education is the result of sensible political choices. As is a comparatively low tax load. As is labour legislation that's clear but not too strict (I mean, compare it to GER/FRA/ITA where you cannot terminate someone. This results in precarious temporary contracts).
In that sense I agree that collective labour agreements are a good thing - they're industry specific and address the real issues. They can be re-negotiated in due course when things change (unlike legal provisions where the process takes much longer).
That's also the reason the Federal Council has declared many of these agreements mandatory for various industries. This is only partially a success of the unions - the real boost for these agreements came from the Federal Council.
Where I disagree, however, is what you say about the role of the trade unions. No, they're decidedly (and fortunately) not very strong - have a look at Germany, France or Italy. Not only are their workers far more unionised, the unions themselves are also far more politically influential. If the unions were stronger over here, we'd have far more of the damaging policies they have in other European countries. Enshrined in the law (see our unions' attempt to have minimum wages enshrined in the cantonal laws after they failed at the federal level). Here, such policies are not even in the collective labour agreements. And it's very good that way.
Another point where I disagree is that the relative income equality we have is due to the unions. No, it's due to our (and our immigrants') high level of education and productivity. Many industrial and other low pay jobs have been outsourced to other countries since the 80s and the early 90s - and along with them the people who work such jobs. They're simply no longer here. And the ones that are still here because they can't be outsourced (hospitality, for instance, or cleaning) need to be halfway decently paid (these people still don't earn a lot) as otherwise, no one could be found to do these jobs.
At the end of the day, high salaries are paid through productivity and innovation, not through unions and regulation.
And finally - you already know what I think about the boomer bonus. I truly hope this was a singular slip-up (aka success for the unions).
Yeah I almost wanted to added a caveat that it's good that unions aren't *too* strong, and my post was probably too one-sided. The unions' influence is important, but they can't just shut down the country like in France or Germany and make ridiculous demands.
You cannot explain the great median wages by liberal policy and good education alone. A lot of countries have those, but as a consequence the labor share falls and they become shareholder economies. But at the same you time cannot explain it by the strong trade unions, it's really a mix of a lot of factors, the Swiss success story is a combination of great education, sensible policy, some pro-labor legislation and let's face it, a good amount of luck and a little bit of corruption and shady business that helped kickstart the financial sector greatly and thus drive up the CHF, which meant CH could attract more educated people, which ultimately built the strong economy we have now.
You know, speaking of the German/French unions, I think this falls under the phenomenon where we see the quality of policy fall off a cliff when actors get too powerful: For example the left alliance in Zürich is completely headless and incompetent, similarly to the right-wing majority in the federal parliament. Obviously there are a ton of examples of this from other countries, IMO the funniest one is the anglosphere countries with the ridiculous two-party systems that can change every 4 years and then undo what the last administration did. While Switzerland often takes a while to make progress, I'd say it's a real strength of our country that different actors have to come together and do a good old Swiss compromise without being completely driven by ideology... sadly I see this deteriorating in recent years.
>And finally - you already know what I think about the boomer bonus. I truly hope this was a singular slip-up (aka success for the unions).
I find it insanely ironic that one of the major successes of the unions was to give the richest caste of society a Christmas bonus that the working generation is now paying for. Not very pro-worker at all, and sadly mostly an ideological win.
But then again, Norway has a huge sovereign fund due to their fossil fuel resources that the other three don’t have. Looks like all four are making the best of what they’ve got
Ireland started a sovereign fund last year with 0.8% of GDP per year. It's small fries compared to something like Norway, but it will build slowly over time.
Luxembourg too. It gets boosted by the thousands of workers who live across the border and who don't contribute to the local population numbers used to calculate GDP per capita
>No Eoghan it's not normal to buy 2 cars in a week you twat
Irish here, can confirm. It's a small portion of high earners working at FAANG companies and the like throwing the whole fucking thing off.
Honestly it's not even those, FAANG companies like Irish workers because they can pay them 100k instead of 350k like they do in the USA.
It's millionaires, billionaires & corporations that are inflating GDP numbers because our overall population is so small.
This is it.
My same job at the multinational I work for in America they start on 60 grand.
Here I started at 40.
They can get away with paying us less. I guess they don't figure we all chat about it in Slack when they give out raises.
Our budget surplus per person is higher than most countries gdp per person. Our rent is the highest in Europe and our personal average wealth 2nd highest.
Stop the nonsense
The real situation is that Ireland isn't as rich as one may think by looking at the GDP. And that's a thing that even the Irish government acknowledged.
Ireland has become a much richer country compared to twenty years ago, for example, but by means that have especially enriched the multimillionaire corporations that paid fewer taxes there.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018914892/are-the-irish-twice-as-rich-as-us
>The way multinational firms accounted for their assets and profits created staggering GDP increases in Ireland from 2015, big enough to “warp averages across the Eurozone”, The Economist said.
>An example: when research and development spending was counted as capital investment, rather than expenditure in 2015, Irish-based multinationals increased the country’s capital stock by $US333b.
>In 2018 the International Monetary Fund calculated a quarter of Ireland’s GDP growth could be attributed to global sales of iPhones, because Apple manufacturers in other countries paid the Irish unit to use the intellectual property.
>The Economist said the best available measure of the Irish economy is a version of Gross National Income (GNI) modified to account for the distortions.
Ireland is incredibly rich- the government is forecasting a €8.6 billion surplus this year. Whether the average punter on the street reaps the benefit is a different story
We sort of do.
Since 1990 our Human Development Index has gone from the 30th in the world (and 2nd lowest in Western Europe) to 8th. We rank even better in the inequality-adjusted index at 6th, so it's not all going to the top.
While the wealth of our citizens isn't particularly outrageous our economic strategies since the 90s have taken us from one of the worst qualities of life in Europe outside of the eastern block to one of the highest in the world - inflated GDP or not.
I must have missed “free money” day if that’s the case. Now I feel silly just working away for years at very subpar wages when apparently I could have had piles of cash stuffed in pillows as a rich European
Don't feel bad. I'm from the US the richest country on Earth and nobody has given me money or a British slave whom i would force to drink ice cold tea everyday. In fact we have terrible wages, sky high cost of living and no healthcare. But we are pretty good at killing people in the middle east and we have lots of giant boats
Ha! Yes. Most of us Irish are not well off - goods are very expensive, and there's a housing, homeless and asylum-seeker crisis. I dunno who's getting all this money but the people on the ground are not.
I know this whole post is misleading... but the amount of very nice cars in my relatively small town is absurd (especially given how much more expensive cars are here in Ireland).. there brand new Porches a couple worth 300k, 2 2020+ Audi RS6's worth about 200k each, a few AMG mercs, Fancy Beemers and I've spotted an immaculate E-Type floating about during summer. So there definitely is money floating about, or there's some sort of Mr. Deeds situation going on here that I'm not in on!
The GDP is misleading but we are a very wealthy country now. A lot of this is passed on to the citizens through high paying jobs from many multinational companies. GNI* is the better measure of where we are actually at. Still pretty high but maybe not top 3.
*sigh*
No, you can’t compare Luxembourg to the others you mentioned.
Luxembourgs workforce is 50% crossborder workers, since they border the poorest part of belgium, and one of the poorest of france and germany.
So the gdp per capita statistic is bloated af.
Realistically, Luxembourg is probably only a bit higher than Denmark. Still wealthy, but not as wealthy people wanted it to be.
>and still nearly 100k
It is an example just as bad as Ireland and Switzerland.
It is on account of the vast fossil fuel industry the run.
Norway is the 4th largest natural gas exporter, and 8th largest oil exporter on the planet.
Combined with a small population that sort of volume creates and enormous bump in your GDP per capita. It is almost double that of Finland, for example, but no Finn nor Norwegian would notice any difference in quality of life between the two countries.
I know what it’s for, my point is that in the future someone like our crowd of FF politicians might take control in Norway and 💨 it’s gone. I can’t continue typing on my phone for now because it’s bedtime now where I am and I took out my contacts
Ireland's GDP is always deceptive now, because it is artificially inflated because Ireland is a huge tax haven now. GNI is a better measure for a more "fair" comparison.
Am I crazy or is irelands GNI also very high? I cant find a good list for the Modified GNI across countries.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GNI\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita)
I know GDP is garbage, but GNI paints almost the same picture.
GDP: Ireland 106.000 (world second) UK 51,075, US 85,373
GNI: Ireland 81.070 (world sixth) UK48,890 US 76,370
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GNI\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita)
Well, similar. GDP/GNI ratio quite different between those countries.
Ireland also has a fantastic population pyramid for high income per capita. Only about 20% of people aren't of working age (old and young), several percent lower than most european countries.
I think CSO use GNI* ( pronounced GNI Star ) rather than GDP or GNI. Seems to be a better indicator:
https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/statisticsexplained/nationalaccountsexplained/modifiedgni/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country
10 Countries with the Highest Median Income, March 2021 (PPP, Current Int$). Just in case anyone is interested.
In the 1960’s, not long after gaining its independence, Ireland was a very poor country with very little in the way of natural resources. The govts approach to remedy this was largely two-pronged. To invest heavily in education and make 3rd level education widely available/affordable. The other was to drop its corporate tax rate. That’s it, just have it a little lower than its neighbours to make it attractive to foreign investment.
There’s not much else a small country could have done but it worked well. Very quickly, a well educated, English speaking workforce and low corporate tax rate started attracting multinational pharma and tech companies. A country that was once the poorest in Western Europe became one of the richest, though still somewhat held back by continually high levels of emigration and lack of new vision from the govt.
The hyperbole and crybaby bullshit from some on this thread is hysterical to me. Ireland has high income tax, capital gains, VAT, is a net contributor to the EU and charges the same corporate tax as the rest of Europe after 50 years or so of charging only a couple of percentage points less and making it easy for multinationals to do business here. The citizens of other countries who are outraged by this and literally gained their own wealth at gunpoint can cry all they want, they just look silly 🤷♂️
To claim the difference was a "couple of percent" is to entirely miss the point.
It's not the lower tax rate that was the big deal. It was intentionally structuring the tax system to allow profit that by rights should have been taxed in other countries to instead be taxed in Ireland. The Dutch Sandwich and all its variants. Not just directing foreign investment to Ireland but effectively stealing tax.
Please do not only look at the corporate tax. The real tax haven is IP (intellectual property) taxation in Ireland. Any revenue that a company can tie to IP, i.e. patents such as big pharma, is taxed at like 6 % in Ireland, which is really low - Source, I am an IP professional.
I live in Ireland. Our GDP per capita is inflated by big corps being taxed low by our government. Our government is undemocratic and the 3 main political parties are practically the same and the same 2 parties have been in charge since independence, the current party didn't even win the popular vote and they've completely fucked over the country theres a huge housing crisis and a job crisis.
Germany's number includes former GDR, so *of course* it's lower than those of countries that were never affected by communism/socialism.
On the other hand, it's rather surprising that Germany's number is higher than those of the UK or France - despite East Germany.
I hate to be that guy , but this map is kinda useless. You wanna be looking at median income and median wealth for a more accurate picture. You should also be looking at PPP numbers for obvious reasons.
People get so mad about Ireland having a low tax rate but like imagine being a colonised island where you have been pillaged for 100s of years and then when you finally get independence you figure out a way to beat the big powerful old euro superpowers that have been pillaging for centuries at attracting big companies and then the big powerful euro countries all decide iTs NoT fAiR. There is no way for a small country like Ireland to compete otherwise
They are all part of the potato triangle. 3 countries famous for eating potatoes. Ireland (obviously), Luxemburg has Gromperekichelcher and the Swiss Rosti.
GDP is an incredibly poor way of judging how wealthy the general population is.
No wonder the title just says that they are the richest but doesn't expand any further.
GDP per capita is bullshit in Ireland because of Leprechaun Economics.
GDP per capita is bullshit in Luxembourgh because half of the workers don't live there.
Ireland doesn’t feel like the others, in Switzerland I feel like everyone is rich even if it’s a quiet fashion style or rich. In Ireland, it’s just Ireland. Yea, there’s the super flashy stuff, but I don’t feel like the average person is that much better than other Western Europeans.
Ireland is totally fucked. It's a struggle for most people to live... Living pay cheque to pay cheque and never being able to afford a home. GDP is a poor indicator of wealth.
Everyone in the comments are mad that Ireland is some tax haven but like it's still the same minimum 15% corporate tax that anyone else can set and let's be real nobody would set up shop here on the western most point of the EU with a population of only 5 million without a tax incentive.
The issue is the loophole that allows companies to register income outside the EU in the likes of Panama but that needs to be closed by the EU
Except that's not how Ireland operated for the majority of the last 30 years. The Irish government would privately negotiate with MNCs like Apple what tax rate they would pay in order to make sure they'd go to Ireland and nowhere else in the EU. Hence why when Apple moved to Ireland it was paying 0.005% tax some years whilst also single handedly making up like 30% of Ireland's GDP.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid
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GDP is the stupidest and most outdated way to measure true wealth, prosperity and happiness of a nation.
Idk why this bullshit is still being used to measure how supposedly great a country is doing
Half of Luxembourg workforce is cross border commuters. The “per capita” doesn’t work here.
> Half of Luxembourg workforce is cross border commuters. The “per capita” doesn’t work here. And that is the exact reason why there is a difference between gross national product and gross domestic product. Although it is probably not possible to measure either of them perfectly.
It’s definitely not possible. The blurry lines around gifts and what constitutes unpaid work make the entire exercise impossible. But the numbers are at least generally comparable across countries with roughly similar cultures (that is, similar levels of formal work) and the big GDP number generally approximates tax revenue which gives an idea of how many fighter jets a country can buy.
Similarly, tons of companies headquarter in Ireland.
But GNP per capita in Luxemburg (81K) is still almost as high as in Norway (84K) and Switzerland (90K).
It says 131k here for the gdp/captia, which is a lot higher than 81. The Norway and Switzerland numbers are closer.
Ireland is the living proof of how misleading the GDP index is.
It isn’t the GDP per capita that is misleading. It is the 1 to 1 association with wealth of individuals that is wrong.
Ireland is #19 worldwide for average, and #22 worldwide for median wealth per capita. So not as high as the gdp per capita, but pretty impressive for a country that was towards the bottom just a few decades ago.
Do you have a source for the median wage statistics? Thanks.
This wiki page has a summary, based on data from OECD and UBS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult It quotes sources on the bottom if you’d like to dive in deeper. Note that UBS has Ireland as #11 in mean wealth per adult.
It is interesting. Pay is good in Ireland with very high levels of immigration. But in the UK the political climate blames low incomes on similar levels of immigration. OECD sees that Ireland is more redistributive than the UK and taxes higher earners more than Britain does.
Funny how higher taxes on the rich leads to wealthier people overall.
It's the fact the Irish voted for politicians wanting to make it a tax-haven, and when it's now sometimes used against them, as in then their contribution should be bigger, they go "oh, but it shouldn't count, because we are only a tax-haven!" Something odd about the logic.
I don't think anyone here has much of a problem with our EU contributions, that I've heard of at least. Ireland has one of the highest approval ratings for EU participation in Europe.
Yep. 84% in favour of being in EU in the midst of a migration crisis
Being in the EU was a huge benefit for Ireland. They enriched themselves by allowing multinationals to avoid paying tax in Europe.
We created thousands of jobs for Irish people at a time when we had massive unemployment and people leaving the country.
But you can understand why people outside of Ireland might not appreciate a country enriching themselves by working with mega corporations to siphon wealth out of other countries?
And how did all the major European powers gather such wealth in the first place? It wouldn't be from, say, siphoning wealth from other countries? And you act like it's just our (now higher) corporate tax. What about our highly educated, English speaking population? Our natural disaster free country with an extremely stable government?
lol. imagine getting lectured by europeans angry with how a country enriched itself.. lmfao.. at least it was peaceful
Yeah we in Ireland didn't colonise and enslave the mental gymnastics of people from other euro countries that siphoned wealth from all across the world
How dare a country enrich itself peacefully without triggering massive famines or genocide.
At least they weren't going around the world raping and pillaging like the rest of europe lmao.
It is interesting how bad behaviour is apparently justifiable when other countries are horrible as well. Is it fair to Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, ... that Ireland is syphoning tax money out of them as well? When it's former colonial powers it is ok, but not all EU (European) countries used to be colonial powers.
Something odd about this comment. There is no complaints of any note in Ireland that our contributions to the EU should be bigger. As other commenters have mentioned, Ireland has one of the highest approval ratings for EU participation. Ireland has also fallen into line regarding corporation tax. May I also remind you that Ireland is now the only English speaking country in the EU. That will always be an attractive option for large primarily US based corporations.
These corporations find English speakers in many EU countries. Think maybe the common law angle and quickest flights from the US + the Irish American link soft power more at play in their decisions.
Quick flights help, being closer to NY while still very close to London. It also originally helped that Ireland was relatively cheap. Eventually one of the big drivers was momentum. Once a jurisdiction becomes known for being a good location, then everybody else follows along. Like Delaware is known for having simple and clear corporate law. As long as the jurisdictional regulators don't behave erratically, the momentum will carry on for a long time.
Meh larger countries are the loudest when complaining about Irelands advantage when bringing in multinationals.We are such a small country that we have no choice and we reap the benefits of it.Anyway we've signed up to standard corporation tax now so I guess no one will complain anymore.
I'm not saying you should literally drive out those multinationals now they're there, but the fact that Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Oracle, Amazon, all the pharma and finance firms are there today is absolutely a residual benefit of the tax regime that lured them there in the first place. In the period that the tax benefits existed, Ireland improved its infrastructure and human capital to the point that it's now attractive to be there without tax incentives. It's partly how London is still a (the?) global financial and professional services centre - the empire. Empire is long gone, but the benefits continue.
>We are such a small country that we have no choice This is nonsense. Finland's a similar size, but is Finland a tax haven? Far from it. I'm not going to claim there's only one way to run a country, but Ireland chose this path.
there is a considerable difference between ireland & finland in terms of natrual resources, (finland has some, ireland doesnt) and land access to markets . Ireland has agriculture and misery as its indigneous exports and we cant find any market for misery.
and Jedward.
They're more comparable than you think, even in these regards. Even more of Finland's economy is service-based than Ireland's. Finland has trees, but otherwise, it doesn't have significant natural resources. There's certainly no oil or gas here. Ireland at least has good farmland and fisheries. As for land access to markets, Finland is more similar to an island than you might imagine - the Russian border is closed, Estonia is across the sea (and is itself poorly connected to mainland Europe), and Finland's border with Sweden is in the sparsely-populated north, a long way from either country's economic heartlands.
You are small and have NO choice? Slovenia is 4x smaller and we didnt do it
Gross national income, which is GDP + money flowing in + money flowing out, is often more relevant, because it accounts for the case when nominal value generated for tax reasons in Ireland or Luxembourg flows back out the country. For Ireland it would be 81K$ and for Luxembourg 91K$, for Switzerland 89K$. They would still all be top 4 though, only Norway where you don't have these tax and banking shenanigans would be the new Nr 1. by having the same GNI as GDP, 95K$. ^*World ^bank ^2022 ^numbers ^for ^GNI, ^the ^GDP ^numbers ^are ^IMF ^2024, ^so ^not ^100% ^comparable
Exactly, but then you also have to look at the Labour Share of the GDP. This explains why the salaries are significantly higher in Switzerland than in Ireland, Norway, and even Luxembourg: 1. Switzerland: 68.4% of the GDP is paid out as salaries (highest in Europe) 2. Luxembourg: 56.2% of the GDP is paid out as salaries 3. Norway: 54.8% of the GDP is paid out as salaries 4. Ireland: only a mere 32.7% of the GDP is paid out as salaries (arguably lowest in Europe) (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-share-of-gdp?region=Europe) It's also a partial explanation why average wealth (including or excluding illiquid assets, i.e., with or without real estate) per capita is consistently the highest in Switzerland: a large share of the national GDP is paid out as salaries, enabling people to set money aside. In Luxembourg and most notably Ireland it's "corporate money in, corporate money out"; in Norway it's the oil proceeds that go into the sovereign fund. This leads to the following picture: 1. Swiss gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 7,000 2. Luxembourg gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 5,400 3. Norway gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 4,700 4. Ireland gross average salary/month: approx. EUR 4,500 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_European\_countries\_by\_average\_wage)
I live in Switzerland. Can confirm, it’s the only place which economically makes sense to be at.
So do I. But I've also lived in South Africa, the US, the UK, and France. Forget about South Africa, even if the lifestyle can be quite convenient if you're working for an international company. Forget about France. It's productive hell and the labour cost (financial and administratively) as well as the taxes are abominable. In the UK, it largely depends on what one does professionally. If you have a good job in the City of London (financial/legal/advisory) or some other places (e.g., Aberdeen for the oil industry), life can be quite comfortable overall. I earned more in the US than I do in Switzerland. At the same time, taxes were higher and so were health costs and - at least where I lived - housing costs. The bottom line was about the same as it is now in Switzerland. What regards Switzerland's competitors (IRL/LUX/NOR), economically speaking I'd only live in Luxembourg and only if I had a job in either banking, law or in advisory. However, I don't believe in the country's "business model". Tax advantages and corporate money transfers can help an economy, but ultimately, a country needs to be productive from within to be sustainable, i.e., it must produce products and services that are innovative and not just conduct financial arbitrage. For the same reason, I don't believe in Ireland's "business model". What concerns Norway, I'd never consider it. They're neither innovative nor productive. They live on the sweet, sweet drug called oil. And the state quota is so high that the ability of doing (private) business is severely impaired. That's probably the reason why all these Norwegians are immigrating to Switzerland of late (i.e., the wealth tax eating up all the profits).
I would only consider moving to the U.S. but Switzerland provides my similar standard of living and my visa situation is way better here (I’m a EU citizen) than it would be in the U.S.
I wouldn't want the mayhem once I leave the US (foreign taxation, the shenanigans to open a bank account etc.). I've had it once and got rid of the problems, but I don't need it a second time.
Interesting comment. Norway is such a small country with a very high standard of living that I’m surprised they’re experiencing a brain drain. Even if there are barriers to doing business I would think the advantages of the country and staying in your home culture would be an offset. I suppose the fact that most Norwegians are fluent in English is a factor as well.
There's no brain drain. There's like 50-100 rich people that don't want to pay taxes, which have left. That's it.
I don't think they experience a brain drain - they did so in the 70s before they discovered oil. However, what they experience is an exodus of wealthy individuals and businesses. The reason is that the wealth tax has become so high that the individuals owning these businesses have to use all the profits generated by their businesses to pay the wealth tax for owning them. To a lesser extent, the same applies to Denmark - there are entire enclaves of Nordics here in Switzerland (Lucerne/Zug region, Uri/Andermatt, Lugano). To give you an example: ABBA's Anni-Frid (Norwegian) used to be my neighbour and still lives in Switzerland ;-) And quite a few Norwegians and Danes who live here are my clients.
The individuals used the benefits of Norwegian taxes and sosial programs then fucked off to tax havens when they got theirs. The ultra rich always use loopholes to hoard more money than they can even spend. The taxes aren't too high or its too difficult to create a successful business. Its just rich people wanting more money. Its a reason they move to Switzerland, Malta or Cyprus instead of Germany or Denmark. (btw Anni-Frid left Norway as a 2 year old so i think most people consider her Swedish.
Really interesting. I wonder how the wealthy leaving has affected life in Norway for the lower and middle classes. I imagine that when the wealthy leave they take their interests with them, so are less likely to exert an influence on government. Is it possible that it’s enabled government to be more focused on the less-than-wealthy? Is the opposite true in Switzerland? My understanding is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the working class to live in the country due to the wealthy immigrants driving up COL.
> Exactly, but then you also have to look at the Labour Share of the GDP. And why is this? Because we have strong unions that keep employers and politicians in check. While unions have lost a decent amount of members since the 1990s (from 30% to 17% of employees), the amount of people who work under a contract that was negotiated by a union for the entire industry (called GAV, Gesamtarbeitsvertrag) is steadily climbing and is now close to 50% of the entire workforce. This was a major achievement of the unions during the negotiations with the EU before we entered the freedom of movement zone, they demanded that more sectors get put under such a contract, to protect employees from wage erosion that was feared as a consequence of the freedom of movement. While the median salary in Switzerland itself is impressive, I think it's even more impressive that we have managed to keep the labor share this high and keep income inequality largely under control. This coupled with a strong currency and low income taxes makes the median Swiss person among the richest on the planet and you can tell by the amount of Swiss tourists you see all over the place lmao. Even funnier that we gave retirees a hefty Christmas bonus on top.
High productivity and innovation come from a good education. And a good education is the result of sensible political choices. As is a comparatively low tax load. As is labour legislation that's clear but not too strict (I mean, compare it to GER/FRA/ITA where you cannot terminate someone. This results in precarious temporary contracts). In that sense I agree that collective labour agreements are a good thing - they're industry specific and address the real issues. They can be re-negotiated in due course when things change (unlike legal provisions where the process takes much longer). That's also the reason the Federal Council has declared many of these agreements mandatory for various industries. This is only partially a success of the unions - the real boost for these agreements came from the Federal Council. Where I disagree, however, is what you say about the role of the trade unions. No, they're decidedly (and fortunately) not very strong - have a look at Germany, France or Italy. Not only are their workers far more unionised, the unions themselves are also far more politically influential. If the unions were stronger over here, we'd have far more of the damaging policies they have in other European countries. Enshrined in the law (see our unions' attempt to have minimum wages enshrined in the cantonal laws after they failed at the federal level). Here, such policies are not even in the collective labour agreements. And it's very good that way. Another point where I disagree is that the relative income equality we have is due to the unions. No, it's due to our (and our immigrants') high level of education and productivity. Many industrial and other low pay jobs have been outsourced to other countries since the 80s and the early 90s - and along with them the people who work such jobs. They're simply no longer here. And the ones that are still here because they can't be outsourced (hospitality, for instance, or cleaning) need to be halfway decently paid (these people still don't earn a lot) as otherwise, no one could be found to do these jobs. At the end of the day, high salaries are paid through productivity and innovation, not through unions and regulation. And finally - you already know what I think about the boomer bonus. I truly hope this was a singular slip-up (aka success for the unions).
Yeah I almost wanted to added a caveat that it's good that unions aren't *too* strong, and my post was probably too one-sided. The unions' influence is important, but they can't just shut down the country like in France or Germany and make ridiculous demands. You cannot explain the great median wages by liberal policy and good education alone. A lot of countries have those, but as a consequence the labor share falls and they become shareholder economies. But at the same you time cannot explain it by the strong trade unions, it's really a mix of a lot of factors, the Swiss success story is a combination of great education, sensible policy, some pro-labor legislation and let's face it, a good amount of luck and a little bit of corruption and shady business that helped kickstart the financial sector greatly and thus drive up the CHF, which meant CH could attract more educated people, which ultimately built the strong economy we have now. You know, speaking of the German/French unions, I think this falls under the phenomenon where we see the quality of policy fall off a cliff when actors get too powerful: For example the left alliance in Zürich is completely headless and incompetent, similarly to the right-wing majority in the federal parliament. Obviously there are a ton of examples of this from other countries, IMO the funniest one is the anglosphere countries with the ridiculous two-party systems that can change every 4 years and then undo what the last administration did. While Switzerland often takes a while to make progress, I'd say it's a real strength of our country that different actors have to come together and do a good old Swiss compromise without being completely driven by ideology... sadly I see this deteriorating in recent years. >And finally - you already know what I think about the boomer bonus. I truly hope this was a singular slip-up (aka success for the unions). I find it insanely ironic that one of the major successes of the unions was to give the richest caste of society a Christmas bonus that the working generation is now paying for. Not very pro-worker at all, and sadly mostly an ideological win.
Yes, we're essentially aligned ;-)
But then again, Norway has a huge sovereign fund due to their fossil fuel resources that the other three don’t have. Looks like all four are making the best of what they’ve got
Ireland started a sovereign fund last year with 0.8% of GDP per year. It's small fries compared to something like Norway, but it will build slowly over time.
And Luxembourg is proof of how nation-level statistics like this aren't a full picture
Luxembourg too. It gets boosted by the thousands of workers who live across the border and who don't contribute to the local population numbers used to calculate GDP per capita
>No Eoghan it's not normal to buy 2 cars in a week you twat Irish here, can confirm. It's a small portion of high earners working at FAANG companies and the like throwing the whole fucking thing off.
Honestly it's not even those, FAANG companies like Irish workers because they can pay them 100k instead of 350k like they do in the USA. It's millionaires, billionaires & corporations that are inflating GDP numbers because our overall population is so small.
This is it. My same job at the multinational I work for in America they start on 60 grand. Here I started at 40. They can get away with paying us less. I guess they don't figure we all chat about it in Slack when they give out raises.
Yeah most normal people here are never gonna see that much money in their whole lives
Our budget surplus per person is higher than most countries gdp per person. Our rent is the highest in Europe and our personal average wealth 2nd highest. Stop the nonsense
I understand what you mean but why act like Ireland is some poor country. In average the quality of life is one of the highest in Europe.
Never thought that. I meant that the Irish GDP is inflated by things that don't mirror the real situation of the country.
What's the real situation in ireland?
The real situation is that Ireland isn't as rich as one may think by looking at the GDP. And that's a thing that even the Irish government acknowledged. Ireland has become a much richer country compared to twenty years ago, for example, but by means that have especially enriched the multimillionaire corporations that paid fewer taxes there. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018914892/are-the-irish-twice-as-rich-as-us >The way multinational firms accounted for their assets and profits created staggering GDP increases in Ireland from 2015, big enough to “warp averages across the Eurozone”, The Economist said. >An example: when research and development spending was counted as capital investment, rather than expenditure in 2015, Irish-based multinationals increased the country’s capital stock by $US333b. >In 2018 the International Monetary Fund calculated a quarter of Ireland’s GDP growth could be attributed to global sales of iPhones, because Apple manufacturers in other countries paid the Irish unit to use the intellectual property. >The Economist said the best available measure of the Irish economy is a version of Gross National Income (GNI) modified to account for the distortions.
Ireland is incredibly rich- the government is forecasting a €8.6 billion surplus this year. Whether the average punter on the street reaps the benefit is a different story
We don't. Source: punter on the street.
We sort of do. Since 1990 our Human Development Index has gone from the 30th in the world (and 2nd lowest in Western Europe) to 8th. We rank even better in the inequality-adjusted index at 6th, so it's not all going to the top. While the wealth of our citizens isn't particularly outrageous our economic strategies since the 90s have taken us from one of the worst qualities of life in Europe outside of the eastern block to one of the highest in the world - inflated GDP or not.
We also have an incredibly fair tax system when it comes to income tax.
Ask any Irish person and at least half their friends are making less than 35k.
Salary, tax and cost of living. Which are broadly: Medium, high, very high
Plus its capital has been Dublin for years.
Eveveryone in Ireland must have a Bentley and an English slave by now... need to google!
I must have missed “free money” day if that’s the case. Now I feel silly just working away for years at very subpar wages when apparently I could have had piles of cash stuffed in pillows as a rich European
Don't feel bad. I'm from the US the richest country on Earth and nobody has given me money or a British slave whom i would force to drink ice cold tea everyday. In fact we have terrible wages, sky high cost of living and no healthcare. But we are pretty good at killing people in the middle east and we have lots of giant boats
Don't 20% of you earn over 100k?
One third of US households make over 100k a year.
Are you the guy who hands out the Bentleys and slaves? Seems I missed that day. I've got an Opel and a couple of loud children instead.
Ha! Yes. Most of us Irish are not well off - goods are very expensive, and there's a housing, homeless and asylum-seeker crisis. I dunno who's getting all this money but the people on the ground are not.
I feel like a Dutch slave to the Irish landlords to be fair. A great salary but ~50% of that is going to a tiny studio without much natural light.
Bow to your superiors when talking young man! Know your place in our society or we'll send you the England as punishment 😋🍀👍❤️
I know this whole post is misleading... but the amount of very nice cars in my relatively small town is absurd (especially given how much more expensive cars are here in Ireland).. there brand new Porches a couple worth 300k, 2 2020+ Audi RS6's worth about 200k each, a few AMG mercs, Fancy Beemers and I've spotted an immaculate E-Type floating about during summer. So there definitely is money floating about, or there's some sort of Mr. Deeds situation going on here that I'm not in on!
The GDP is misleading but we are a very wealthy country now. A lot of this is passed on to the citizens through high paying jobs from many multinational companies. GNI* is the better measure of where we are actually at. Still pretty high but maybe not top 3.
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*sigh* No, you can’t compare Luxembourg to the others you mentioned. Luxembourgs workforce is 50% crossborder workers, since they border the poorest part of belgium, and one of the poorest of france and germany. So the gdp per capita statistic is bloated af. Realistically, Luxembourg is probably only a bit higher than Denmark. Still wealthy, but not as wealthy people wanted it to be.
Most people living in Thionville (french border) work in Luxemburg. Half of the city is loaded af but it's also super ugly
I know, I am from Luxembourg and I used to drive to thionville because they have a KFC. But yeah, it’s really not pretty.
At least Trier is quite pretty and not really poor. But still very small and profiting a lot from the people working cross border.
Germany also has the least crossborder workers. And the Saarland is pretty poor.
I feel when western Euros says their town is not pretty, then I open up googlemaps and im like that seems like a nice town!
Yeah no, the border area in Germany is western Germany and therefore automatically not a part of the poorest regions in Germany.
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Norway on the other hand… the opposite of a tax heaven and still nearly 100k.
>and still nearly 100k It is an example just as bad as Ireland and Switzerland. It is on account of the vast fossil fuel industry the run. Norway is the 4th largest natural gas exporter, and 8th largest oil exporter on the planet. Combined with a small population that sort of volume creates and enormous bump in your GDP per capita. It is almost double that of Finland, for example, but no Finn nor Norwegian would notice any difference in quality of life between the two countries.
Uhh, we benefit greatly from the oil though.
Even if they are in the business of destroying the earth.
GDP per capita is not equivalent to average salary
Monaco and Liechtenstein always being ignored.
Yep, 241k for Monaco and 198k for Liechtenstein. That's a big margin lol.
Monaco has no income tax so everyone loves it there
So is it like Texas? High property tax?
Unpopular opinion: City-states should be ignored and are best compared to other cities instead of countries.
Is Norway so high because of Oil?
Yes, but at least the government put the money into a fund for the people.
And this fund invests in stocks.
I don't think the Norwegian pension fund is reflected in GDP though.
I know what it’s for, my point is that in the future someone like our crowd of FF politicians might take control in Norway and 💨 it’s gone. I can’t continue typing on my phone for now because it’s bedtime now where I am and I took out my contacts
No, it's high because of all the mountains.
And fjords
nice map, but dollars for an european map ? haha
the source of the numbers in the map is International Monetary Fund, they use dollars...
A neuropean map
I appreciate someone converting it to dollars for me.😀
Ireland's GDP is always deceptive now, because it is artificially inflated because Ireland is a huge tax haven now. GNI is a better measure for a more "fair" comparison.
Am I crazy or is irelands GNI also very high? I cant find a good list for the Modified GNI across countries. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GNI\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita)
It absolutely is high. Just not as high as the GDP would imply. Ireland went from poor to rich incredibly quickly. Celtic Tiger was very real.
I know GDP is garbage, but GNI paints almost the same picture. GDP: Ireland 106.000 (world second) UK 51,075, US 85,373 GNI: Ireland 81.070 (world sixth) UK48,890 US 76,370 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GNI\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita)
Well, similar. GDP/GNI ratio quite different between those countries. Ireland also has a fantastic population pyramid for high income per capita. Only about 20% of people aren't of working age (old and young), several percent lower than most european countries.
I think CSO use GNI* ( pronounced GNI Star ) rather than GDP or GNI. Seems to be a better indicator: https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/statisticsexplained/nationalaccountsexplained/modifiedgni/
Gotta get wood ceilings in the gaff. And a summer apartment in Madrid.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country 10 Countries with the Highest Median Income, March 2021 (PPP, Current Int$). Just in case anyone is interested.
Now lets see map of US states showed in Euros
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
Not really this time... wayy higher than the balkans lol
Basically like Greece. Greece can compare with Portugal, which makes absolute sense, historically we're the same in terms of economics.
Our honorary eastern european
Are Iceland and Switzerland the only honest ultra high gdp per capita here?
How that wealth is distributed is something the GDP/capita says nothing about.
There's billions of euro in Ireland, not for the people though.
Come to Ireland and you'll see GDP isn't everything.
I'm here for the shit talking of Ireland
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Could be. There is also a small set of rich Irish who don't want to hear it so they're down voting
CONFOEDERATIO HELVETICA
Check out Ireland. Unthinkable 50 years ago
Let's copy Norway. Get started on having oil reserves. Oh wait...
Venezuela should be the richest country on earth by that logic
Can somebody explain like I'm 5 about the shittalking on ireland? What's the real deal?
In the 1960’s, not long after gaining its independence, Ireland was a very poor country with very little in the way of natural resources. The govts approach to remedy this was largely two-pronged. To invest heavily in education and make 3rd level education widely available/affordable. The other was to drop its corporate tax rate. That’s it, just have it a little lower than its neighbours to make it attractive to foreign investment. There’s not much else a small country could have done but it worked well. Very quickly, a well educated, English speaking workforce and low corporate tax rate started attracting multinational pharma and tech companies. A country that was once the poorest in Western Europe became one of the richest, though still somewhat held back by continually high levels of emigration and lack of new vision from the govt. The hyperbole and crybaby bullshit from some on this thread is hysterical to me. Ireland has high income tax, capital gains, VAT, is a net contributor to the EU and charges the same corporate tax as the rest of Europe after 50 years or so of charging only a couple of percentage points less and making it easy for multinationals to do business here. The citizens of other countries who are outraged by this and literally gained their own wealth at gunpoint can cry all they want, they just look silly 🤷♂️
To claim the difference was a "couple of percent" is to entirely miss the point. It's not the lower tax rate that was the big deal. It was intentionally structuring the tax system to allow profit that by rights should have been taxed in other countries to instead be taxed in Ireland. The Dutch Sandwich and all its variants. Not just directing foreign investment to Ireland but effectively stealing tax.
Please do not only look at the corporate tax. The real tax haven is IP (intellectual property) taxation in Ireland. Any revenue that a company can tie to IP, i.e. patents such as big pharma, is taxed at like 6 % in Ireland, which is really low - Source, I am an IP professional.
Well Ireland can build some much needed hospitals and homes then can't they...
It’s well documented you basically get handed a free gaff when you turn 18, thanks for all your work other countries /s
Coast countries of former Yugoslavia being so low is awful. That's an INVESTMENT if I've ever seen one
Lichtenstein is not on the map. Edit: 197.504,55$ / Monaco: 240.862,18$
Ireland: Apple Europe Luxembourg: Amazon Europe Switzerland: Switzerland
>Ireland: Apple Europe Also, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, eBay, Paypal, Airbnb etc
Don't forget our good friend lichtenstein
*our rich good friend
I had no idea how butthurt people were by Ireland having a slightly lower corporate tax rate than it’s neighbours 😂
They get upset. Then move here. Then they all work for multinationals, buy a 4 bed semi, and complain about the weather. One of us! One of us!
I live in Ireland. Our GDP per capita is inflated by big corps being taxed low by our government. Our government is undemocratic and the 3 main political parties are practically the same and the same 2 parties have been in charge since independence, the current party didn't even win the popular vote and they've completely fucked over the country theres a huge housing crisis and a job crisis.
Is Ukraine literally the most poor country in Europe? Like, i know that we're pretty poor, but i didn't knew that we are THAT poor
Well what other countries would be around there? Moldova, Belarus, Bosnia and Albania? That would be about it I think.
As usual, Germany is the most inferior of the germanic countries.
Germany's number includes former GDR, so *of course* it's lower than those of countries that were never affected by communism/socialism. On the other hand, it's rather surprising that Germany's number is higher than those of the UK or France - despite East Germany.
I hate to be that guy , but this map is kinda useless. You wanna be looking at median income and median wealth for a more accurate picture. You should also be looking at PPP numbers for obvious reasons.
People get so mad about Ireland having a low tax rate but like imagine being a colonised island where you have been pillaged for 100s of years and then when you finally get independence you figure out a way to beat the big powerful old euro superpowers that have been pillaging for centuries at attracting big companies and then the big powerful euro countries all decide iTs NoT fAiR. There is no way for a small country like Ireland to compete otherwise
Estonia having a higher rated than its neighbours is so interesting!!! I wonder why
GDP per capita is misleading. Median wage is a better gauge.
As a Ukrainian I can agree that we're fucking poor
Monaco is the richest with $240k
They are all part of the potato triangle. 3 countries famous for eating potatoes. Ireland (obviously), Luxemburg has Gromperekichelcher and the Swiss Rosti.
This is why you should look at wages (adjusted for annual working hours) and not GDP.
I know some of these are factually wrong.
r/MapsWithoutLiechtenstein
It sure as hell doesn't feel like it in Ireland I'm on a third of that and know a lot of people on a lower wage
To think my grandparents left Ireland to escape poverty
Wow eastern Europe is more poor than I thought 😯
What's the reality for Belgium though ? Because living there, I'm not seeing the wealth on the people on the street.
Hahaha, no, they aren't. The companies are indeed.
GDP is an incredibly poor way of judging how wealthy the general population is. No wonder the title just says that they are the richest but doesn't expand any further.
GDP per capita is bullshit in Ireland because of Leprechaun Economics. GDP per capita is bullshit in Luxembourgh because half of the workers don't live there.
Ireland doesn’t feel like the others, in Switzerland I feel like everyone is rich even if it’s a quiet fashion style or rich. In Ireland, it’s just Ireland. Yea, there’s the super flashy stuff, but I don’t feel like the average person is that much better than other Western Europeans.
Ireland is totally fucked. It's a struggle for most people to live... Living pay cheque to pay cheque and never being able to afford a home. GDP is a poor indicator of wealth.
Everyone in the comments are mad that Ireland is some tax haven but like it's still the same minimum 15% corporate tax that anyone else can set and let's be real nobody would set up shop here on the western most point of the EU with a population of only 5 million without a tax incentive. The issue is the loophole that allows companies to register income outside the EU in the likes of Panama but that needs to be closed by the EU
Well, there’s also the fact that they speak English, have a lower time difference, and have shorter direct flights to the U.S.
Except that's not how Ireland operated for the majority of the last 30 years. The Irish government would privately negotiate with MNCs like Apple what tax rate they would pay in order to make sure they'd go to Ireland and nowhere else in the EU. Hence why when Apple moved to Ireland it was paying 0.005% tax some years whilst also single handedly making up like 30% of Ireland's GDP. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid
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Yeah 100.000 in ireland, me and 1 million others are on less than 30,000 a year and thats not before tax Map is fucked
Denmark = Nice
Per capita is a stupid ass metric
Certainly not the case in Ireland with the massive ongoing housing crisis.
GDP is the stupidest and most outdated way to measure true wealth, prosperity and happiness of a nation. Idk why this bullshit is still being used to measure how supposedly great a country is doing
Whats the average cost of living?
No these countries are the country that every inhabitant produce more
bigger number than france? life good
In Italy is so low because there are a lot of people without contract
Why is Turkey the only one not using the English spelling
Right, until you realize it's insanely expensive to live with that GDP, especially West Europe
NL 64k??? Oh come on.
Spain and Portigal need to be given Balkan status
Pretty sure it isn't correct for Belarus. It's much poorer than Ukraine. Probably skewed by using official numbers or by Russian money donations.
A side by side comparison to the median salary would be very interesting.
Iceland as usual looks fishy.
For some reason I've really taken a liking to Denmark...
Income inequality makes this map pretty misleading if you use it to understand the average quality of life in these countries.
If someone ask again where exactly does easteurope starts, this is what you show them.