Ask Lemmy

Monaco is a tax haven where lots and lots of companies are nominally registered, so everything they make counts towards Monacos GDP. Since not a lot of people live there, the GDP per citizen is very high, even though the citizens aren't the ones creating the value.

It's just a statistical error, similar to the one that causes the Vatican to have by far the highest crime rate in the world (because it has millions of visitors whose crimes are counted in relation to the ~400 residents in the statistic).

Very small countries like that you are more likely to see this. Its like dubai. The country is mainly a casino.

Monaco has ridiculously low taxes for its residents, which gets very wealthy people to move there.

Suppose 20 people make 30 things and have to share amongst themselves; they each get 1.5 things.
2 people make 5 things; they each get 2.5.

And there's your asnwer. It's just math.

It's worth mentioning that GDP per capita is not a reflection of true average wealth of a national population. It is at best an estimate of their average quality of life, and even that has been becoming more and more inaccurate as more countries have more uneven wealth distribution. For example, in NY, the GDP per capita in 2024 is a whopping $604,619, but their median wage in 2024 is a mere $86,830.

Monaco (the country) is a smaller than Central Park in NYC

That's why. I imagine there are areas in Manhattan that have a way higher GDP per capita than Monaco.

Because GPD is the most stupid way to measure the economy. A 300M Ferrari generate the same GPD than a 300M hospital. Monaco have a lot of Ferraris an other stupid millionaire shit.

Why do you talk about how small the country is if the stat is per capita?

Tax haven and gambling....

Then also what you said about needing to be wealthy to live there.

It's like if Manhattan and Vegas merged into one city-state.

Very small area where only the rich can afford to live inside the borders, and all the workers and tourists live outside the border. Because of that, individual taxes are very low, which makes citizenship even more desirable for the wealthy.

So overtime, it just keeps concentrating

I think you might be missing an important part of GDP per capita, and be asking a slightly confusing set of questions as a result.

Per capita means per person. "GDP" and "GDP per capita" are each very different numbers.

GDP - tries to measure the total economic output of the country. It might be what you want to use to compare the raw economic might of two economies.

GDP per capita - This is just scaled by the population. You might use it to see if a small country like Monaco is punching above its weight.

Median GDP per capita - This third measure is what you might what to use to see how the average citizen in a country is doing. Ideally you'd want to also control for cost of living, but generally a bigger number here means higher quality of life for its citizens, even if the cost of living is also high.

I haven't been to Monaco but I visited Gibraltar couple of times. Gibraltar has GDP per capita of $111k so it's also higher than USA. Couple of observations.

It's not that nice. I mean there's nothing wrong but it's not full of luxury homes. It looks normal.

During one of my visits the power went out. Someone said it happens regularly. Looks like they don't have great infrastructure.

A lot of Spanish people cross the border there to work in restaurants and such but LLanitos (residents of Gibraltar) also hold normal jobs like driving taxis. They are not all super rich. It looks like most people there are simply upper-middle class.

Where do they have money from? Online gambling licenses and tourism.

Funny story: I once tracked some online scam selling fake products online. The scam was promoted on websites in Poland. To get the product they where asking to send the money to a company registered in Gibraltar. I checked the address it was some shared office with bunch of different companies registered there. That's another way they make money. They serve as a fiscal residence for shady businesses.

Tax evasion 😜

Rich people and tax evasion I guess. It feels equivalent to Luxembourg.

There is no tourism industry in Monaco though, everything is too expensive.

They have a real king.

/s