Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

The Global God Divide

Appendix B: Economic categorization

For this report we grouped countries into two economic categories: “advanced” and “emerging and developing.” In the report, this category is referred to as “emerging.” These categories are fairly common in specialized and popular discussions and are helpful for analyzing how public attitudes vary with economic circumstances. However, no single, agreed-upon scheme exists for placing countries into these three categories. For example, even the World Bank and International Monetary Fund do not always agree on how to categorize economies.

In creating our economic classification of the 34 countries in our survey, we relied on multiple sources and criteria. Specifically, we were guided by: World Bank income classifications; per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP); total size of the country’s economy, as measured by GDP.

Below is a table that outlines the countries that fall into each of the two categories. The table includes for each country the World Bank income classification, the 2019 GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP) in current prices and the 2019 GDP in current U.S. dollars.

A table showing economic categorization
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