IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpdc/0508007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The National Wealth of Selected Countries - A Descriptive Essay

Author

Listed:
  • Voxi Heinrich S. Amavilah

    (Glendale & REEPS)

Abstract

What determines the wealth of nations? If anyone knew the answer to that question, no-one would have heard of Adam Smith as an economist, and for that matter all economists. Economics is really the study of wealth creation under scarcity. The reason economists and others have a hard time pinning down the causes of wealth is that wealth is costly to measure, and many factors and forces are potential determinants. This paper describes, in a simple way, wealth accounting by extending the data assembled by a recent World Bank study. The extension will benefit those seeking to run time-series, cross-section, and/or pooled data regressions to assess how wealth is determined. But even from this simple data mining exercise alone the results indicate significant increases in the wealth of the 92 countries in this sample. From the theoretical standpoint the World Bank’s expanded measure under-estimates the wealth of developing countries. Yet, even if the income (GDP) component of their wealth has fallen, total national wealth has increased. The policy implications of this essay are tentative until empirical analysis is carried; even so, the results seem to suggest that GDP is a necessary but not a sufficient requirement for wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Voxi Heinrich S. Amavilah, 2005. "The National Wealth of Selected Countries - A Descriptive Essay," Development and Comp Systems 0508007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0508007
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 20 . Figures available on request if not clear
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/dev/papers/0508/0508007.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Oulton, 2004. "Productivity Versus Welfare; Or GDP Versus Weitzman's NDP," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(3), pages 329-355, September.
    2. Lars Osberg & Andrew Sharpe, 2002. "An Index of Economic Well–Being for Selected OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 291-316, September.
    3. Pearce, David, 1992. "Economic valuation and the natural world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 988, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amavilah, Voxi Heinrich, 2007. "The effects of technology-as-knowledge on the economic performance of developing countries: An econometric analysis using annual publications data for Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, 1976-2004," MPRA Paper 3482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Voxi Heinrich AMAVILAH, 2016. "Social Obstacles to Technology, Technological Change, and the Economic Growth of African Countries: Some Anecdotal Evidence from Economic History," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 320-340, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Man Liang & Shuwen Niu & Zhen Li & Wenli Qiang, 2019. "International Comparison of Human Development Index Corrected by Greenness and Fairness Indicators and Policy Implications for China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 1-24, February.
    2. Carola Grün & Stephan Klasen, 2001. "Growth, income distribution and well‐being in transition countries," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 9(2), pages 359-394, July.
    3. Carola Grün & Stephan Klasen, 2003. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Well-Being: Comparisons across Space and Time," CESifo Working Paper Series 837, CESifo.
    4. Lars Osberg & Andrew Sharpe, 2014. "Measuring Economic Insecurity in Rich and Poor Nations," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 53-76, May.
    5. Matthew D Rablen, 2012. "The promotion of local wellbeing: A primer for policymakers," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 27(3), pages 297-314, May.
    6. Charles M. Beach & Ross Finnie & David Gray, 2003. "Earnings Variability and Earnings Instability of Women and Men in Canada: How Do the 1990s Compare to the 1980s?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(s1), pages 41-64, January.
    7. Ulrich Kohli, 2022. "Trading Gains and Productivity: A Törnqvist Approach," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 42, pages 63-86, Spring.
    8. Mauro Giorgio Marrano & Jonathan Haskel & Gavin Wallis, 2009. "What Happened To The Knowledge Economy? Ict, Intangible Investment, And Britain'S Productivity Record Revisited," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 686-716, September.
    9. Lars Osberg & Andrew Sharpe, 2011. "Moving from a GDP-Based to a Well-Being Based Metric of Economic Performance and Social Progress: Results from the Index of Economic Well-Being for OECD Countries, 1980-2009," CSLS Research Reports 2011-12, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    10. Suman Seth and Antonio Villar, 2017. "Measuring Human Development and Human Deprivations," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp110.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    11. Martínez Roget, F. & Murias Fernández, P. & Miguel Domínguez, J.C. De, 2005. "El análisis envolvente de datos en la construcción de indicadores sintéticos. Una aplicación a las provincias españolas/DEA Construction of Composite Indicators. An Application to the Spanish Province," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 23, pages 753-771, Diciembre.
    12. Abdul Azeez Erumban, 2008. "Lifetimes Of Machinery And Equipment: Evidence From Dutch Manufacturing," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(2), pages 237-268, June.
    13. Marta Nečadová, 2012. "Is GDP an Appropriate Indicator of Economic Performance and Social Progress in the Context of Globalization? [Je HDP vhodným ukazatelem ekonomické výkonnosti a sociálního pokroku v podmínkách globa," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(5), pages 3-23.
    14. Komlos, John & Baur, Marieluise, 2004. "From the tallest to (one of) the fattest: the enigmatic fate of the American population in the 20th century," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 57-74, March.
    15. Schang, Laura & Hynninen, Yrjänä & Morton, Alec & Salo, Ahti, 2016. "Developing robust composite measures of healthcare quality – Ranking intervals and dominance relations for Scottish Health Boards," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 59-67.
    16. Lars Osberg & Andrew Sharpe, 2003. "Human Well-being and Economic Well-being: What Values Are Implicit in Current Indices?," CSLS Research Reports 2003-04, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    17. Melanie Jones, 2004. "The Dynamic Benchmarking of Labour Markets," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 493-504.
    18. Duernecker, Georg & Herrendorf, Berthold & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2021. "The productivity growth slowdown and Kaldor’s growth facts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    19. Gloria Polinesi & Mariateresa Ciommi & Chiara Gigliarano, 2024. "Impact of COVID-19 on elderly population well-being: evidence from European countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(6), pages 5201-5223, December.
    20. Jerzy Michalek & Nana Zarnekow, 2012. "Application of the Rural Development Index to Analysis of Rural Regions in Poland and Slovakia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 105(1), pages 1-37, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O49 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0508007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.