Chinese and Italians poles apart in economic optimism
(Financial Times)
Updated: 2005-01-26 16:00

The Chinese are the world's optimists about their personal economic prospects, while Italians languish at the bottom of the league, according to an international survey of individuals' attitudes to economic conditions.

In a BBC poll of the residents of 22 countries, almost two-thirds of the countries had populations with a broadly optimistic outlook of their personal finances.

Released to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, the survey also showed that those answering the questions were generally less confident about their own country's economy or the world economy than they were about their families' economic conditions.

Optimism was concentrated in countries with fast growing economies such as China and India.

Many industrial countries with stagnant economies were located towards the bottom of the optimism league table. The survey showed that people in France, Italy and Japan had the darkest outlook about their personal finances.

Germany, perhaps surprisingly, fared better, even though economists agree that its economic prospects in the coming year are far from bright.

Steven Kull, director of Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland in the US said: "There seems to be a paradoxical tendency for people around the world to say 'I'm OK; but the world isn't.' "

The survey was undertaken by different polling organisations in different countries towards the end of last year, with about 1,000 adults interviewed in each of the 22 countries.

In China, only the urban population was surveyed.

Within countries, those with higher incomes tended to be more optimistic about their families' economic outlook than those with relatively low income.

This disparity was marked in India, Turkey, the US and Russia where income inequality is high although it was also found to exist in Canada.

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