- People have developed various statistics to measure development.
GDP
- GDP, or Gross Domestic Product expresses the monetary value of economic activity within a country during the year.
- GDP per capita is the total GDP divided by the population, giving an average value of how much money goes to each person.
- While GDP can give an insight into the wealth of a country, it can be very misleading due to inequal distribution, government spendings, corruption, etc.
HDI
- HDI or Human Development Index measures the quality of life.
- It tries to give a relatively objective measurement on the quality of an average person's life.
- It uses life expectancy, average years of education, average years of expected education and GDP in relation to buying power.
- It gives a much more accurate representation compared to GDP or GDP per capita.
Gini Coefficient
- The Gini Coefficient/Index measures the distribution of income across a population.
- It is expressed as a number between 0 (perfect equality) and 1 (perfect inequality).
- With a Gini Coefficient of 0, all income would be distributed equally, whereas with a Gini Coefficient of 1, only one person would receive all of the income.