In 2023, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas were the states with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean. The average GDP generated per person in the Bahamas amounted to 34,749 U.S. dollars, whereas the average wealth created per capita in Puerto Rico was estimated at around 34,749 U.S. dollars. In that same year, this region's lowest GDP per capita was that of Haiti, at less than 1,693 U.S. dollars per person per year. The largest economies in Latin America GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year. It is an important indicator to measure the economic strength of a country and the average wealth of its population. By far, the two largest economies in the region are Brazil and Mexico, both registering GDPs three times bigger than the third place, Argentina. Nonetheless, they are the two most populated countries by a great margin.
Key economic indicators of Latin America Latin America emerges as an important region in the world economy, as of 2023, around 7.3 percent of the global GDP, a similar share to the Middle East. Nevertheless, the economic development of most of its countries has been heavily affected by other factors, such as corruption, inequality, inflation, or crime and violence. Countries such as Venezuela, Suriname, and Argentina are constantly ranking among the highest inflation rates in the world. While Jamaica, Ecuador, and Haiti rank as some of the most crime-ridden states.

The average for 2024 based on 19 countries was 19884 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Puerto Rico: 44125 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Haiti: 2801 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The average for 2024 based on 11 countries was 12338.87 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Guyana: 29883.63 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Bolivia: 4001.21 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Guyana was the South American country 20360the highest gross national income per capita, with 20,360 U.S. dollars per person in 2023. Uruguay ranked second, registering a GNI of 19,530 U.S. dollars per person, based on current prices. Gross national income (GNI) is the aggregated sum of the value added by residents in an economy, plus net taxes (minus subsidies) and net receipts of primary income from abroad. Which are the largest Latin American economies? Based on annual gross domestic product, which is the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year, Brazil leads the regional ranking, followed by Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Many Caribbean countries and territories hold the highest GDP per capita in this region, measurement that reflects how GDP would be divided if it was perfectly equally distributed among the population. GNI per capita is, however, a more exact calculation of wealth than GDP per capita, as it takes into consideration taxes paid and income receipts from abroad. How much inequality is there in Latin America? In many Latin American countries, more than half the total wealth created in their economies is held by the richest 20 percent of the population. When a small share of the population concentrates most of the wealth, millions of people don't have enough to make ends meet. For instance, in Brazil, about 5.32 percent of the population lives on less than 3.2 U.S. dollars per day.

In 2025, Brazil and Mexico were expected to be the countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that year, Brazil's GDP could reach an estimated value of 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars, whereas Mexico's amounted to almost 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year. It measures the economic strength of a country and a positive change indicates economic growth.

This dataset provides values for GDP PER CAPITA PPP reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Graph and download economic data for Gross Domestic Product Per Capita for Developing Countries in Latin America and Caribbean (NYGDPPCAPCDLAC) from 1960 to 2024 about Caribbean Economies, Latin America, per capita, and GDP.

In 2023, four Caribbean nations were the countries with the highest gross national income per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean. On average, the national gross income amounted to around 31,990 U.S. dollars per person in the Bahamas, an island country which also had one of the highest gross domestic product per capita in this region. Outside the Caribbean Excluding the Caribbean, the economies with the highest national income per capita are generally located in South America, with the exceptions of Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico. Guyana leads among continental states with a national income of around 20.360 U.S. dollars per person. Gross national income (GNI) is the aggregated sum of the value added by residents in an economy, plus net taxes (minus subsidies) and net receipts of primary income from abroad. The biggest economies Brazil and Mexico are still miles ahead in the race for the biggest economy of Latin America. As of 2023, both nations exceeded the two trillion U.S. dollars mark in their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While Argentina's GDP, third place, slightly surpassed the 600 billion U.S. dollars. Nonetheless, both nations also ranked as the most populated by far in the region.

As of 2023, Uruguay was the country in South America with the largest Gross Domestic Product per capita, with ********* US dollars. Guyana landed in second place, with ********* US dollars per capita. When it comes to the total GDP in South America, Brazil led the region this year with more than * trillion U.S. dollars.

Graph and download economic data for Constant GDP per capita for Developing Countries in Latin America and Caribbean (NYGDPPCAPKDLAC) from 1960 to 2024 about Caribbean Economies, Latin America, per capita, and GDP.

Chile is amongst the Latin American nations where climate change will have the most severe impact on the country's GDP. Under a Paris Agreement warming scenario – which means limitting the temperature rise to less than ***ºC above pre-industrial levels – Chile would suffer about ***** percent loss of its GDP per capita, whereas under an extreme warming scenario this figure would go up to ** percent. Meanwhile, the impact of climate change in Venezuela's GDP would result in a loss ranging between *** and **** percent, depending on the warming scenario.

In 2025, Luxembourg was the country with the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. Of the 20 listed countries, 13 are in Europe and five are in Asia, alongside the U.S. and Australia. There are no African or Latin American countries among the top 20. Correlation with high living standards While GDP is a useful indicator for measuring the size or strength of an economy, GDP per capita is much more reflective of living standards. For example, when compared to life expectancy or indices such as the Human Development Index or the World Happiness Report, there is a strong overlap - 14 of the 20 countries on this list are also ranked among the 20 happiest countries in 2024, and all 20 have "very high" HDIs. Misleading metrics? GDP per capita figures, however, can be misleading, and to paint a fuller picture of a country's living standards then one must look at multiple metrics. GDP per capita figures can be skewed by inequalities in wealth distribution, and in countries such as those in the Middle East, a relatively large share of the population lives in poverty while a smaller number live affluent lifestyles.

Historical dataset showing Latin America & Caribbean GDP per capita by year from 1960 to 2023.

Constant GDP per capita for Developing Countries in Latin America and Caribbean was 8562.81505 2010 U.S. $ in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Constant GDP per capita for Developing Countries in Latin America and Caribbean reached a record high of 8562.81505 in January of 2023 and a record low of 3146.02676 in January of 1960. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Constant GDP per capita for Developing Countries in Latin America and Caribbean - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on December of 2025.

The average for 2023 based on 19 countries was 20.24 percent. The highest value was in Panama: 37.73 percent and the lowest value was in Haiti: 13.85 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2024, total expenditure on health care in Chile amounted to ******* U.S. dollars per person, the highest among selected countries in Latin America. Colombia ranked second, with a health expenditure per capita of around ******* U.S. dollars, while in Mexico, approximately ******* U.S. dollars per person were spent for health care. That year, Chile's spending on health represented nine percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

This paper presents new data documenting the cost of salaried labor in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We gather data on the three main costs associated to hiring salaried labor; (i) minimum wages and other monetary benefits, (ii) mandated contributions for social insurance and other benefits and (iii) job security provisions. We present two new indicators. First, we calculate the average non-wage cost of salaried labor (NWC). This indicator answers the following question: for the average wage, what additional share of wages must be satisfied by workers and employers to fulfill all the law mandated non-wage costs of a legal salaried relationship. Our second indicator combines these non-wage costs with the nominal restriction that legal wages cannot be lower than the minimum wage. We calculate the annual dollar value of paying a worker the minimum wage plus all mandated non-wage costs as a share of GDP per worker. This constitutes the minimum cost of salaried labor (MCSL). We highlight seven important facts; (i) The average non-wage cost of salaried labor (NWC) for the region is 49% of wages. (ii) There is a large dispersion across countries like Argentina, Brazil and Peru with costs around 70% of wages and countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Chile with cost less than 40% of wages. (iii) Mandatory contributions are the most important component of the average non-wage cost of salaried labor with 27.3% of wages followed by additional benefits with 13.8% of wages while job security provisions account for another 8.4%. (iv) On average, mandated contributions from employers amount to 17.5% of average annual wages, versus 9.8% of mandated contributions from employees. (v) The minimum cost of salaried labor (MCSL) is on average 39% of GDP per worker. (vi) Variation of the MCSL across countries is even larger. For countries like Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago or the Dominican Republic the MCSL it is below 15% of GDP per worker while the minimum cost of hiring a salaried worker in Honduras is 95% of GDP per capita. (vii) Despite having below average NWC, the five poorest countries in our sample are those presenting the highest MCSL, due to high minimum wages relative to GDP per worker.

The average for 2024 based on 11 countries was 15067.24 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Singapore: 90674.07 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Burma (Myanmar): 1359.26 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This dataset accompanies the study The Cultural Resource Curse: How Trade Dependence Undermines Creative Industries. It contains country-year panel data for 2000–2023 covering both OECD economies and the ten largest Latin American countries by land area. Variables include GDP per capita (constant PPP, USD), trade openness, internet penetration, education indicators, cultural exports per capita, and executive constraints from the Polity V dataset.

The dataset supports a comparative analysis of how economic structure, institutional quality, and infrastructure shape cultural export performance across development contexts. Within-country fixed effects models show that trade openness constrains cultural exports in OECD economies but has no measurable effect in resource-dependent Latin America. In contrast, strong executive constraints benefit cultural industries in advanced economies while constraining them in extraction-oriented systems. The results provide empirical evidence for a two-stage development framework in which colonial extraction legacies create distinct constraints on creative industry growth.

All variables are harmonized to ISO3 country codes and aligned on a common panel structure. The dataset is fully reproducible using the included Jupyter notebooks (OECD.ipynb, LATAM+OECD.ipynb, cervantes.ipynb).

Contents:

• GDPPC.csv — GDP per capita series from the World Bank.

• explanatory.csv — Trade openness, internet penetration, and education indicators.

• culture_exports.csv — UNESCO cultural export data.

• p5v2018.csv — Polity V institutional indicators.

• Jupyter notebooks for data processing and replication.

Potential uses: Comparative political economy, cultural economics, institutional development, and resource curse research.

How to Run This Dataset and Code in Google Colab

These steps reproduce the OECD vs. Latin America analyses from the paper using the provided CSVs and notebooks.

1) Open Colab and set up

1. Go to https://colab.research.google.com

2. Click File → New notebook.

3. (Optional) If your files are in Google Drive, mount it:

2) Get the data files into Colab

You have two easy options:

A. Upload the 4 CSVs + notebooks directly

• In the left sidebar, click the folder icon → Upload.

• Upload: GDPPC.csv, explanatory.csv, culture_exports.csv, p5v2018.csv, and any .ipynb you want to run.

B. Use Google Drive

• Put those files in a Drive folder.

• After mounting Drive, refer to them with paths like /content/drive/MyDrive/your_folder/GDPPC.csv.

This scatter chart displays tax revenue (% of GDP) against health expenditure per capita (current US$) in South America. The data is about countries.