WHY SOME COUNTRIES ARE RICH AND SOME ARE POOR/.

WHY SOME COUNTRIES ARE RICH AND SOME ARE POOR?

INTRODUCTION

My subject is why some countries are rich and why some are poor. Let me begin with some dry facts. If you look at the way we economists measure the well-being of people in different countries, you find we usually talk about per capita income: we take the income of a country and we divide it by the population and come up with a number. This is not the best way to measure well-being, but it gives you some notion of the enormous disparities. The data, of course, are misleading. We are talking about human beings living in dire straits that are staggering compared to standards of living in high-income countries. It is not that we do not have poor people in our country; we do, and that is another problem

DISCUSSION

No country has become rich without a high degree of nationalism and social cohesion. Will the rich nations of today be the poor nations of tomorrow? The answers involve both "external" factors (geographic and environmental) and human factors (e.g., the values pursued by country’s decision-makers). The differences in bio geographic initial conditions and in geography largely account for the different timings of the Neolithic transition, and thereby ultimately help account for the 100-fold differences among the prosperity of nations today. The effects of biogeography and geography on the wealth of nations are partly mediated by the quality of present day institutions, but are also partly independent of institutional quality.

Poor and rich country inequality depends on a number of reasons other than the PRODUCTIVITY OF THE PEOPLE. This factor no doubt is of primary importance, but other factors include:

1. Fertility of Land
2. Diversity of Resources
3. Nature of Economy (Capitalistic, Socialistic)
4.Trading Relations of the nation
5.Demand-Supply Statistics
Natural Surroundings, Calamity hits, and other environmental factors

Geography plays an important role, but not all of it, government plays a major role in a countries well being, in totalitarian states the standard of living is usually lower than a democracy, that’s because the socialistic type governments take a large % of what people earn to support the suppression of the same peoples, in most 3 world countries they have a dictatorship that is only interested in the wealth being absorbed by the ruling Group in charge. Labour productivity depends on own effort, but also on education and capital. Rich countries certainly do have better education and capital than poor ones.

But the catch is that all countries started out the same, so rich ones have built up capital and schools, and poor ones didn't. So in the end it still boils down to working hard or being lazy. By comparison, ancient China was the dominant power in the region, so although they did invent gunpowder and paper, they used them as luxury toys rather than tools of warfare or education.

I feel the countries that has good leader and citizens make the country rich, just as an example, compare Japan and Bangladesh, both are almost equal in size but Japan is rich because the people over there have got a thirst for knowledge, they know how to make money..The main thing is that the leader and citizens decides the fate of a country.

COMPARISON BETWEEN RICH AND POOR COUNTRIES:

· Rich country often has high GDP and income per capita compared to the poor ones.

· 2. Rich countries have bigger employment opportunities and mostly have citizen with a positive outlook in life.

· Rich countries have an aging population that usually dies of chronic diseases whereas poor countries have a younger population base that die of preventable or much simpler illness.

· Rich countries focus on opportunities while poor countries focus on obstacle.

CONCLUSION:

Rich countries are often described as having people who have positive outlook in life. Poor countries often have citizens, who want to change their corrupt government to end. The most corrupt countries in the world then most of them are considered to be poor countries.

REFERENCE:

1. info. worldbank.org/tools/bspan/presentation/view.asp?PID=554&EID=270

2. www.bnet.com/blog/intercom/why-are-some-nations-rich-while-other-are-poor/3315

SUBMITTED BY:

RENU

MBA-1C