Question

What makes a nation successful? Can it be measured as a high GDP, or GDP growth rate or is it better measured as high GDP per capita? Perhaps there are other ways to understand happiness and the health of a nation. What is the best method to measure the health of a nation?

Answer 1

Ans) GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in an economy. GDP growth rate shows the speed with which economy is growing and GDP per capita shows the economic output per individual.

Accordingly, all the factors are necessary for determining the success of the nation i.e sustained high output coupled with increased speed, otherwise the nation will stagnate. GDP per capita is more appropriate measure of any country's success. It is because a nation is called to be successful when the distribution per person is higher i.e. it is able to provide sufficient income per individual. For eg- suppose there are two countries with gdp $100billion and one has a population of 30 million while the other has a population of 40 million. The per capita GDP for first country will be $3333 while for the other country it is $2500. It is clear from the example that first country is more successful as it has more income per individual.

Not only GDP but other factors also decide the health of a nation, like freedom of speech, liberty of media, corruption level, mortality rate, life expectancy, education etc. Likewise HDI can be used to measure overall economic and social growth of a nation. However it does not cover corruption and other indicators but it does cover some significantly important factors like education, health and standard of living. Norway was ranked 1st in HDI in 2018. A country is called to be healthy if larger population of the country is healthy, able to afford good living and is well educated. So it can be called as one of the best method to measure the health of a nation.