A British financial publication says Prime Minister John Key is paid more than the leaders of the United States, Germany and France, relative to the per capita output of each country's economy.
British magazine The Economist has ranked 20 world leaders' pay compared with per capita gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr Key earns $393,000 a year as prime minister - more than eight times New Zealand's per capita GDP of $47,000.
According to The Economist, that puts Mr Key ahead of US president Barack Obama, and the leaders of the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Germany and Russia, among others.
Just a handful of leaders on the magazine's list earn more compared with their country's per capita GDP. These include Singapore, Indonesia, South Africa and Hong Kong.
Top of the table is Kenya, whose parliament recently proposed paying its prime minister 240 times as much as the country's per capita GDP.
