Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period. GDP (nominal) per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries; therefore, using a basis of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) may be more useful when comparing living standards between nations, while nominal GDP is more useful comparing national economies on the international market. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of each industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the total population of the region is the per capita GDP and the same is called Mean Standard of Living.
The standard of living in the United States is high by the standards that most economists use, and for many decades throughout the 20th century, the United States was recognized as having the highest standard of living in the world. Per capita income is high but also less evenly distributed than in most other developed countries; as a result, the United States fares particularly well in measures of average material well being that do not place weight on equality aspects.
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of increase in real gross domestic product, or real GDP.
A developed country is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. A point of reference of 20,000 USD in 2021 USD nominal GDP per capita for the IMF is a good point of departure, it is a similar level of development to the United States in 1960. Some countries with lower nominal gdp per capita could be considered as developed given that their PPP gdp per capita is much higher to their nominal gdp per capita, therefore having a higher standard of living than would be considered if one only looks at nominal gdp.
A developing country is a country with a less developed industrial base and a low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreement on which countries fit this category. The term low and middle-income country (LMIC) is often used interchangeably but refers only to the economy of the countries. The World Bank classifies the world's economies into four groups, based on Gross National Income per capita: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low income countries. Least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states are all sub-groupings of developing countries. Countries on the other end of the spectrum are usually referred to as high-income countries or developed countries.
The category of newly industrialized country (NIC), newly industrialized economy (NIE) or middle income country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists. They represent a subset of developing countries whose economic growth is much higher than other developing countries; and where the social consequences of industrialization, such as urbanization, are reorganizing society.
The Index of Economic Freedom is an annual index and ranking created in 1995 by conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The creators of the index claim to take an approach inspired by Adam Smith's in The Wealth of Nations, that "basic institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society".
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723–1790), Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), and David Ricardo (1772–1823) concentrated their attention on factor income-distribution, that is, the distribution of income between the primary factors of production. Modern economists have also addressed issues of income distribution, but have focused more on the distribution of income across individuals and households. Important theoretical and policy concerns include the balance between income inequality and economic growth, and their often inverse relationship.
The idea of convergence in economics is the hypothesis that poorer economies' per capita incomes will tend to grow at faster rates than richer economies, and in the Solow growth model, economic growth is driven by the accumulation of physical capital until this optimum level of capital per worker, which is the "steady state" is reached, where output, consumption and capital are constant. The model predicts more rapid growth when the level of physical capital per capita is low, something often referred to as “catch up” growth. As a result, all economies should eventually converge in terms of per capita income. Developing countries have the potential to grow at a faster rate than developed countries because diminishing returns are not as strong as in capital-rich countries. Furthermore, poorer countries can replicate the production methods, technologies, and institutions of developed countries.
The Solow–Swan model is an economic model of long-run economic growth set within the framework of neoclassical economics. It attempts to explain long-run economic growth by looking at capital accumulation, labor or population growth, and increases in productivity, commonly referred to as technological progress. At its core is a neoclassical (aggregate) production function, often specified to be of Cobb–Douglas type, which enables the model "to make contact with microeconomics". The model was developed independently by Robert Solow and Trevor Swan in 1956, and superseded the Keynesian Harrod–Domar model.
International inequality refers to the topic of inequality between countries and can be compared to global inequality, which refers to inequality between people across countries. Recent international inequality research has primarily been concentrated on the rise of international income inequality, but a broadens scope of international disparity may also include factors such as educational and health inequality, as well as differences in medical access.
The economic impact of immigration is an important topic in Canada. The two conflicting narratives that exist in Canada is one of politicians that higher immigration levels helps to increase economy (GDP) and the other of economists that say it decreases GDP per capita or living standards for the resident population and leads to diseconomies of scale in terms of overcrowding of hospitals, schools and recreational facilities, deteriorating environment, increase in cost of services, increase in cost of housing, etc. However, economists also concur with politicians about the increase in GDP but they don't consider it to be an effective metrics for immigration. Another purported narrative for immigration was that it was for replacing the ageing workforce. However, this notion is debunked by economists and noted that increasing immigration rates is not an effective strategy to counter this entirely.
The Preston curve is an empirical cross-sectional relationship between life expectancy and real per capita income. It is named after Samuel H. Preston who first described it in 1975. Preston studied the relationship for the 1900s, 1930s and the 1960s and found it held for each of the three decades. More recent work has updated this research.
Poverty can be and is measured in different ways by governments, international organisations, policy makers and practitioners. Increasingly, poverty is understood as multidimensional, comprising social, natural and economic factors situated within wider socio-political processes. The capabilities approach also argues that capturing the perceptions of poor people is fundamental in understanding and measuring poverty.
India's per capita net national income or NNI was around 135 thousand rupees in 2020. The per-capita income is a crude indicator of the prosperity of a country. In contrast, the gross national income at constant prices stood at over 128 trillion rupees. The same year, GNI growth rate at constant prices was around 6.6 percent. While GNI and NNI are both indicators for a country's economic performance and welfare, the GNI is related to the GDP or the gross domestic product plus the net receipts from abroad, including wages and salaries, property income, net taxes and subsidies receivable from abroad. On the other hand, the NNI of a country is equal to its GNI net of depreciation.
In China today, poverty refers mainly to the rural poor, as decades of economic growth have largely eradicated urban poverty. The dramatic progress in reducing poverty over the past three decades in China is well known. According to the World Bank, more than 850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of extreme poverty; China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms.
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth from some individuals to others by means of a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.
Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) is a justice-based effort-sharing framework designed to show how the costs of rapid climate stabilization can be shared fairly, among all countries. More precisely, GDRs seeks to transparently calculate national “fair shares” in the costs of an emergency global climate mobilization, in a manner that takes explicit account of the fact that, as things now stand, global political and economic life is divided along both North/South and rich/poor lines.
The Philippine poverty rate decreased from 23.3% in 2015 to 16.7% in 2018 according to official government statistics, and is expected to decline further in the following years. This shows that even though the economy has recently slowed, the Philippines is still making progress in poverty reduction.
Democracy and economic growth and development have had a strong correlative and interactive relationship throughout history. While evidence of this relationship's existence is irrefutable, economists' and historians' opinions of its exact nature have been sharply split, hence the latter has been the subject of many debates and studies.
