Purchasing Power Parities 2017-2019

Swedish households’ Actual Individual Consumption 7 percent above EU average

Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2020-12-22 9.30

Swedish households’ Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) per capita was 7 percent above the average for the 28 EU countries in 2019.

AIC per capita varied in 2019 among the 28 EU Member States, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland, from 32 percent above the EU average to 43 percent below the EU average. Luxembourg tops the list at 32 percent above, followed by Norway, 29 percent above, and Switzerland at 22 percent above the EU average. However, it should be noted that Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are not included in the EU average.

Graph: Actual Individual Consumption in purchasing power standards (PPS), 2019 (EU28=100) — Actual Individual Consumption in purchasing power standards (PPS), 2019 (EU28=100)

Source: Eurostat and SCB

GDP per capita is mainly an indicator of economic activity in a particular country.

In 2019, Sweden’s GDP per capita in PPS was 18 percent above the EU average. Luxembourg had by far the highest GDP per capita, at 159 percent above the EU average. This high figure is due, in part, to the large proportion of foreign workers in the country, who contribute to GDP, but are not included in the population statistics. The lowest figure recorded in this comparison was 47 percent below the EU average, in Bulgaria.

Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), volume indices per capita in PPS, 2017, 2018, and 2019 EU28=100

	AIC volume index per capita, EU28=100			GDP volume index per capita, EU28=100
	2017	2018	2019	2017	2018	2019
Luxembourg	133	133	132	261	259	259
Norway	130	130	129	149	154	146
Switzerland	125	123	122	161	160	157
Germany	121	121	120	123	122	120
Austria	118	117	116	126	127	126
Denmark	114	114	114	129	128	129
Iceland	115	115	114	128	127	126
Netherlands	112	113	112	128	129	127
Belgium	112	113	112	117	117	117
Finland	112	112	111	110	111	111
United Kingdom	114	113	111	106	105	104
Sweden	111	109	107	121	119	118
France	108	107	107	103	103	105
EU-28	100	100	100	100	100	100
Italy	98	98	98	97	96	95
Ireland	93	93	94	183	189	192
Cyprus	93	94	94	88	90	89
Lithuania	88	89	90	78	81	83
Spain	91	90	89	92	91	90
Portugal	82	84	85	77	78	79
Malta	81	83	84	99	98	99
Czechia	82	83	84	90	92	92
Slovenia	78	79	81	85	87	88
Poland	75	77	78	69	70	72
Romania	69	72	78	63	65	69
Greece	76	76	76	67	66	66
Estonia	73	74	74	79	81	83
Latvia	68	69	70	67	69	69
Slovakia	67	67	68	70	70	70
Hungary	63	64	66	68	71	73
Croatia	63	64	64	62	64	65
Bulgaria	54	56	57	50	51	53

Source: Eurostat and SCB Note: Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland are not EU Member States and are therefore not included in the EU average. The countries are sorted by descending AIC in 2019.

Definitions and explanations

Purchasing power parities (PPP) are currency conversion rates that are applied in order to convert economic indicators from national currency to artificial common currency, called Purchasing Power Standard (PPS), which equalises the purchasing power of different national currencies and enables meaningful volume comparison between countries.

PPP is the ratio between the amount in the countries’ domestic currency that is needed to purchase the same basket of goods and services.

GDP is first calculated in the domestic currency and later converted with an artificial currency, Purchasing Power Standard (PPS). GDP per capita adjusted with purchasing power reflects the difference in volume in real terms between countries

Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) refers to all goods and services that are actually consumed by individual households. In international comparisons, AIC is often preferred as an indicator of households’ material welfare.

Eurostat’s publishing of Purchasing Power Parities

Consumption per capita in purchasing power standards in 2019

The Eurostat website and database

Next publishing will be

22 December 2021 at 09:30.

Statistical Database

More information is available in the Statistical Database

Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.