Photo Courtesy of Walter Chang LONDON — Calculating national misery is a tricky business, but Bloomberg had a shot.

Its annual "Misery Index" combines countries' 2018 inflation and unemployment outlooks. It is based on the widely-held notion that countries with low employment and low inflation generally indicate a happy population, and vice versa.

While the global picture is generally positive, with 3.7% year-on-year growth forecast for the world in 2018, some countries are blighted by runaway inflation and growing unemployment.

So which combine the poorest unemployment and inflation prospects to rank as the most miserable in the world?

The scores below are based on annual averages of monthly or quartely data for 2017 and forecasts for 2018 from Bloomberg surveys, with an average inflation and unemployment rate for each country added together to form a single figure.