Question

Find a recent list of countries with per capita GDP.  Look at the list. Get an idea of which are the rich countries, and which are the poor. What patterns do you see with the rich and poor countries? Which source did you use? How does it vary from other lists? Write one page (single-spaced) summary of what trends you see on this list.

Make sure you reference your source.

Answer 1

The data source is World Bank and International Monetary Fund site.

The rich countries of the world in terms of GDP per capita are United States, Singapore, United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, japan and all the developed nations of the world have high GDP per capita. On the other hand most of the South African nations and some of the Asian nations are poor. The disparity is very large. While some of the developed nations have GDP per capita of more than $50,000 while poor nations have GDP per capita of less than $1500 which shows large disparity.

The trend shows that for the rich nations the GDP per capita has been rising and increasing at increasing rate. While for the poor nations the GDP per capita is showing a rising trend but the GDP increases at diminishing rate which lowers the growth rate of GDP.

Comparing it with other lists, it is shown that the trend is almost similar for most of the nations.

Also, comparing other indicators, GDP per capita disparity leads to disparity in other variables and indicators of the economy like unemployment rate, gross enrollment ratio, health and education spending etc.