National Development, Comparing Different Countries and States

How to Compare Development of a Nation

• In case of development of a nation, different section of society have different views on  country’s development.
• This leads to conflict in the society among different groups.
• The conflict of interests needs to be accommodated by the government.

• Development can mean different things for different groups of people.
• It makes necessary to select a common characteristics of the things which are taken for comparison.
• In order to compare the development of nations, the income of the countries is always considered to be one of the most important attributes.

What is Income of a Country

• The income of a country means the aggregate of incomes of all the residents of the country.  This gives us the Total income of the country.

• But total income doesn’t tell us the average income of a person in country which is more appropriate for comparison.
• If we divide total income by total population, we get average income, which is also known as Per Capita Income.

• The Per capita income is used as a criteria in comparing development of countries by World Bank when it publishes World Development Report.

• As per 2004, countries with per capita income above Rs. 4,53,000 per annum is considered rich countries and per capita income below Rs. 37,000 per annum is considered low-income countries.
• India is a low-income country as its average income was 28,000 in 2004.