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
