Web-based Questions


1			Do all poor countries grow fast? The CIA World Factbook is published annually and contains economic, political, and social data for nearly every country in the world. To pull up rankings of each country on each data item, go to https://www.cia.gov/, select Library, Publications, The World Fact Book, and Guide to Country Comparisons. Scroll down to the Economy section and click on "GDP-real growth rate." Write down the growth rates of the countries with the five highest real GDP growth rates and the five lowest real GDP growth rates. Go back to the Economy section and click on "GDP-per capita." (Per capita is Latin for per person.) Look up GDP per person for each of the countries whose growth rates you have just written down. Can we say that all poor countries grow fast? Should we assume that countries with lower levels of GDP per person will automatically be able to catch up with living standards in rich countries?




2			Is real GDP per person a sufficient measure of well-being? Economists tend to focus on real GDP per person as their primary way of comparing living standards among countries. But they are also aware that real GDP per person does not capture many factors that affect the quality of life. Go to the CIA World Factbook's rank-order page at go to https://www.cia.gov/, select Library, Publications, The World Fact Book, and Guide to Country Comparisons. Scroll down to the People section. Click on "Infant mortality rate." Write down the rank and the infant mortality rate for the following four countries: the United States, France, Mexico, and China. Go back to the People section and click on "Life expectancy at birth-total." For each of the four countries, write down its rank and life expectancy at birth. Now compare the data you just wrote down for infant mortality and life expectancy at birth with the GDP per person data shown in Global Perspective 23.1. Does the country with the highest GDP per person have the lowest infant mortality or the highest life expectancy? Can poorer countries do well on these alternative measures of well-being? Could people be misled about differences in living standards if they only compared different countries' levels of GDP per person?

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