Question

The World Bank, an economic development agency, maintains statistics on
standards of living across the world. The website is: https://data.worldbank.
org/indicator. Use this website to make cross-country comparisons based
on real GDP per capita. The rst data series to download is real GDP
per capita in constant dollars: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.
GDP.PCAP.KD
(a) Which country was the richest in 2016? Which was the poorest? Note
that some countries don't have data for 2016, so ignore those.
(b) Compute average annual growth for those two countries between 1960 and
2016.
(c) Find three indicators you would use to describe standards of living in
those two countries for the year 2010. Discuss how standards of living
vary between the two countries. Which would you rather live in?

Answer 1

a) Richest and poorest countries are given below
b) Average growth rate
Burundi - 0.18
Luxembourg - 2.565

c) There three common indicators to measure standard of living.
Life expectancy at birth, education and real GDP per capita. In developing countries, medical facilities and food availability is an issue so that life expectancy at birth tends to be low. This again the case for education because it needs heavy investment in primary education which could strengthen higher education but most emerging r poor countries are plagued with poor infrastructure and educational facilities. Lastly, real GDP per capita measures productivity in the economy and wealth creation for the people. Higher real GDP per capita is the sign healthy economy.

Comparing all the indicators, it is easy to see that Luxembourg is far ahead than Burundi but obvious fact that Luxembourg has been benefited by low population and its geographical location in Europe which one of the most prosperous regions in the world.
Burundi is situated in Africa and continent was exploited by European powers as colonies but even after independence, there are very few examples of growth stories in Africa.
Rationally, Luxembourg will be always preferable.

( Please note that graph and data are sourced from the external website because it has been asked in the question.)