A few weeks ago I received a little book with my subscription renewal for The Economist magazine. This Pocket World in Figures -2007 Edition is a collection of numbers and indexes measuring the major economic and social indicators for 182 countries in the world. It contains rankings on more than 200 topics in subject areas as wide-ranging as geography, population, business, the economy, trade, transportation, finance, industry, demographics, the environment, society, culture, and crime.
I spent some time checking the Italy ranking for all of the indexes. Here is my personal, non-exhaustive selection of rankings sorted from the highest to the lowest.
| Index | Rank | Value | Notes |
| Highest Population over 60 | 2nd | 25.6% | Japan is #1 |
| Wine Drinkers | 3rd | 29.1 | Litres per head |
| Mobile Phone Subscribers | 4th | 108.2 | Subscriptions per 100 people |
| Highest Car Ownership | 5th | 547 | Cars per 1K people |
| Most Tourist Arrival, '000 | 5th | 37,071 | Spain is #2 with 53,000 |
| Largest Deficit, $m | 6th | -15.56 | - |
| Largest Industrial Output, $bn | 6th | 417 | - |
| Biggest Exporters | 8th | 3.85% | % of world exports |
| Largest Donors, $m | 9th | 2,464 | US is #1 with 19,705 $m |
| Highest Life Expectancy | 10th | 80.6 | US is #40 |
| Biggest Economies (GDP, $bn) | 10th | 1,677 | - |
| Most Crowded Roads | 14th | 73.3 | US is #33 |
| Human Development Index | 18th | 93.4 | A Quality of Life Index |
| Highest Environmental Performance | 21st | 79.8 | US is #28 |
| Highest Population, millions | 22th | 57.3 | Was 10th in 1950 |
| Highest GDP per Head | 24th | $29,280 | US is #9 |
| E-readiness | 25th | 7.14 | Internet economy readiness |
| Computers per 100 people | 31st | 31.3 | Computers |
Personally I feel proud about some of these numbers and ashamed about others. I would like to know your honest opinion. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.
Franco Folini
Of course you HAVE to be proud when you see that a country ranked 22nd in population and 6th in largest public deficit, can still come up with a 6th largest industrial output and 8th among the biggest exporters.
If you add to this last one the 5th position in most tourist arrival, everybody grasps how relevant is international business for the Italian economy…
This last ranking is somehow disappointing, though: for the country with the most world heritage sites of the UNESCO list, 5th position should make us rethink not our product or marketing, but our customer support…
While the US, UK, and even France may have geo-political reasons for being in the top 5 (if they are), the presence among the top ranked of countries like Italy, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Japan should rely mainly on the quality of the ‘product’ they deliver, and on their ‘customer service’…
Thus, having visited Spain in the early ‘80s, and remembering it as almost a second world country back then, I am amazed by their 2nd position: one explanation may be a language that ranks among the three most spoken in the world (alternatively sharing the spot with Mandarin, Hindi and English), and the creation of amusement and recreation areas that caters almost exclusively to foreigners like the Canaries, and Ibiza…
Nothing that Italians couldn’t have done, but they didn’t…
And, finally, you HAVE to tell me: who took second spot after the dreaded French cousins in wine drinking? Californians?...
Posted by: Giorgio | February 19, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Sorry to disappoint you Giorgio. The #1 wine drinker is Portugal, #2 is Switzerland. As you know Italy is number 3 and France is only 5th after Argentina.
Posted by: Franco Folini | February 22, 2007 at 08:07 AM
Ha-ha-ha! That's the best!
I‘m entitled to love Frenchmen (and women) again!
But, how could that happen?
Too much Perrier? (hihihihi…)
Portugal and Switzerland?
I understand it’s in percentage for population (POR 10M, CH 7M, ARG 39M, F 62M!), but still…
I always thought you’d have a fun time in Lisbon or Buenos Ayres, but Zurich?… Bern?
Unless bankers have wine in their vein in place of blood (which would actually explain a lot of things…), it has to go all in Vin Brûlé…
Hahaha… I’m having the blogging time of my blogging life!…
Posted by: Giorgio | February 22, 2007 at 12:42 PM
Hi Giorgio, I do think, to be positive, we have to push, without any trust on governmental policy, on our unic capacity to do communication, networking, helpyourself approach. Waiting the right man for the job also in Italy (I have an idea: Mario Draghi for president, in a few years, better months).
Posted by: Paolo Marenco | March 05, 2007 at 03:29 AM