Which economies have done best and worst during the pandemic?

THE SPEED of the economic bounce-back from the enormous recession of 2020 has taken many forecasters by surprise. Output across the 38 mostly rich OECD countries combined probably surpassed its pre-pandemic level a few months ago. The average unemployment rate across the club, at 5.7%, is in line with the post-war average. And aggregate household income, adjusted for inflation, is above its pre-covid level. The overall picture has been remarkably benign, even as several variants of the coronavirus have emerged. But it hides stark differences beneath. The pandemic has created winners and losers—and the dispersion between them is likely to persist in 2022.

In order to assess these differences, The Economist has gathered data on five economic and financial indicators—GDP, household incomes, stockmarket performance, capital spending and government indebtedness—for 23 rich countries. We have ranked each economy according to how well it has performed on each measure, creating an overall score (the table below shows the overall ranking, and four of our five indicators). Some countries remain in the economic pits, while others are faring better than they were before the pandemic on almost every measure. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all near the top, and America has also performed reasonably well. Many big European countries, however, such as Britain, Germany and Italy, have fared worse. Spain has done worst of all.