Cheer champions: Brits more confident than any other developed economy

The Pew Research Center, which is behind the study of 48,643 global respondents , said the data reflects the UK’s better-than-expected recent economic performance. For example, the perception that unemployment is a big problem in the UK dropped by 12 percentage points this year, according to the study, which coincides with the unemployment rate's fall to a five-year low .

The UK now has the third highest positive view of its current economy out of the advanced economies - at 43pc, compared to Germany's 85pc and Israel's 59pc - as well as the most number of optimists and the fewest number of pessimists. Just 17pc of Brits said they expect the economic situation in the UK to worsen, while 45pc think it will improve.

Emerging economies were the most upbeat about the future, but perhaps with less reason to be. Eighty percent of Chinese people expect their economy to improve over the next year, but IMF forecasts point to a slowdown in GDP growth, from 7.4pc this year to 7.1pc in 2015. Around 70pc of Colombians and Nigerians were looking forward to economic improvements, in contrast to IMF projections of those countries' GDP growth.

Perhaps more justifiably, the Greeks topped the misery table. Almost everyone - 97pc - said that national economic conditions are bad, and it was the only country where more than half of respondents expect the situation to deteriorate. At least they’re in good company: similar proportions of Italian, Spanish and French people aren’t happy about their economies, mostly because of the jobs crisis.

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