Steve Hanke, an American economist and professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University, has recently published its 2023 version of the Hanke Annual Misery Index (HAMI), which ranks 157 countries worldwide according to their misery scores. In details, said scores represent the sum of four economic indicators, namely the unemployment rate (which is assigned a coefficient of two), the inflation rate, the bank-lending rate and the real GDP per capita growth (which is assigned a negative sign), with higher scores indicating more elevated levels of misery. Steve Hanks commented that the rankings remained largely unchanged year-on-year, with the list of the most miserable 20 countries in 2022 only witnessing four new introductions in 2023, and 13 of the least 20 miserable countries in 2022 also making it to the same list in 2023.

From a ranking perspective, Thailand emerged as the least miserable country worldwide with a score of 6.6%, having an unemployment rate of just 1.2%, an inflation rate of 2.0%, a bank-lending rate of 4.6% and a real GDP per capita growth of 2.4%. Thailand was followed by Japan with a score of 7.0%, Switzerland (8.7%), Qatar (which ranked first in the MENA region with a score of 9.3%) and Malta with a score of 9.5%.

On the MENA region front, GCC countries in general appeared as the least miserable, mainly owing to their relatively low unemployment and inflation rates. In details, Qatar was followed by Oman with a score of 12.2%, Bahrain (12.5%), the United Arab Emirates (15.0%), Kuwait (17.2%) and Saudi Arabia (32.7%). On the unhappy end of the list, Lebanon emerged as the most miserable country in the region and third on a global basis with a score of 266.1%, registering a high unemployment rate of 27.5%, a double-digit inflation rate of 203.0%, a 4.3% bank-lending rate and a negative real GDP per capita growth of 3.8%. Lebanon was pipped by the war-torn countries of Syria (251.4%) and Yemen (76.7%).