DP (PPP) [“GDP based on purchasing power parity”] per capita. GDP (PPP) per capita compares generalized differences in living standards on the whole between nations because PPP takes into account the relative cost of living and the inflation rates of countries, rather than using just exchange rates, which may distort the real differences in income. The indicator measures GDP converted to a common set of prices in a common currency (international dollars, also called Geary-Khamis dollars) so that real quantity comparisons can be made both between countries and over time. The difference between GDP growth and GDP (PPP) per capita is best exemplified by China, which ranked highest for this period in terms of GDP growth, but came in 96th for this period in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita.
GDP is not a perfect measure to describe the well-being and quality of life of populations, and there are other indexes that take into account other variables such as life expectancy, income distribution, literacy, etc. – for example, the UN Human Development Index and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. In fact, GDP is often considered imperfect even to measure overall economic strength. (See the report released in 2009 by a commission chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economists Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz and Professor Amartya Sen, and by Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi [Download PDF] and “Beyond GDP” from the European Commission. Still, when taken with PPP, it is a useful tool for comparing economies across national boundaries.
Poverty remains extensive throughout the world, particularly in south Asia and Africa.
A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000 (their most recent figures), and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. World Bank Development Indicators reported in 2008 that in 2005 (their most recent figures) 1.4 billion people lived on $1.25 a day or less (US$ PPP); almost 15% of the world’s population, or nearly 1 billion people, lived on $1 a day or less.
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Richest and Poorest Countries | Global Finance