This list overlaps with the largest-economies ranking by only seven countries — Switzerland, the US, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, the UK, and Canada. The other 13 are small economies, and only five countries on the entire list have populations above 20 million.

The figures at the top all need a discount. Close to half of Luxembourg's workforce commutes in daily from France, Germany, and Belgium — they generate GDP but never enter the population denominator. First-placed Liechtenstein, with fewer than 40,000 residents, leans on cross-border workers the same way. Ireland's number is inflated by multinationals booking profits locally, which is why its statistics office created a separate measure, modified gross national income (GNI*), to track the real picture.

And one notable absentee: Monaco is a sovereign state whose GDP per capita of roughly $288,000 tops the world on World Bank data, but it is not an IMF member and so falls outside this IMF-based ranking.