South Koreans are often obsessed with statistics and “who’s on top” lists.

Daily Chosun bemoans Brazil’s economy overtaking that of South Korea, pushing the latter down to 12th largest economy in the world. Apparently, Mexico (13th) and Russia (14th) are fast on South Korea’s heels.

There are many problems with this sort of ranking in what amounts to international you-know-what size contest (we, the U.S., win, by the way). But it should suffice to point out two issues that come to mind immediately to deflate this sort of thing.

First, of all, the size of the economy does not equate to complexity and diversity of the economy. Brazil, Mexico and Russia are all, to some degree, dependent on natural resource extraction whereas Korea’s economy is largely based on manufacturing and service. So Koreans can take it easy. Or can they?

The reason perhaps they should not rest easy is that GDP per capita (particularly that adjusted for PPP or purchase-power parity), rather than simple GDP, provides better correlations to “quality of life” or other “advanced society” manifestations that Koreans desperately seek for their country. And the GDP per capita ranking tells a more complex story. And on that accord, South Korea comes in 33rd, below Slovenia and Cyprus (but, alas, we, the U.S., also fall to third).

It is clear from the latter ranking that countries with small, highly educated populations do very well (Luxembourg 1st, Norway 2nd, Iceland 4th, Denmark 6th, Canada 7th, Austria 8th, Hong Kong 9th, Switzerland 10th, Qatar 11th, Belgium 12th, Finland 13th, Australia 14th). All among the top fourteen (top fifteen if one counts the Netherlands) are such countries, except the United States and Qatar (the last is a small country indeed, but not one with a highly educated population).

What is really unique about the U.S. is that, in fact, it is such a large country and yet does so well in GDP per capita (PPP) terms. Only with Japan (16th), Germany (17th) and the United Kingdom (18th) do we really start seeing nations with large population sizes in the ranking. This really speaks to the economic dynamism of the U.S. despite its massive size and economic maturity.

In contrast, South Korea (33rd) is in company with other middle-level economies like Israel, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Bahrain, Portugal and the Czech Republic, according to the GDP per capita (PPP) list rather than the more exalted ranking of 12th per the GDP list.

What this suggests is that South Korea’s economy as a whole is perhaps reaching the top tier in the world, but its quality is still middle-level. This seems lend further credence to the notion that Korea, as a society, is still sacrificing the individual’s quality of living in the quest for “national greatness.”