Chart 1 Exercises with Answers

1. Study Chart 1 which shows GNP, population, and GNP per capita for low- and middle-income and high-income countries. What does it show you about the differences in the production of goods and services between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries? [Production of goods and services in low- and middle-income countries is much less than in high-income countries, and population is much larger; therefore, on average, each person gets a much smaller share of total production.]

2. Compare GNP per capita in low- and middle-income and high-income countries.

1. Refer to the Basic Data Tables and choose four countries—your own, one low-income, one middle-income, and one high-income. [Answers will vary.]
2. Refer to column 3 in the Basic Data Tables and find the GNP per capita in 1998 for each country you selected. [Answers will vary.]
3. How many times larger is GNP per capita in the high-income country than in the low-income and middle-income countries? (Divide GNP per capita in the high-income country by GNP per capita in each of the developing countries.) [Answers will vary.]
4. How many times larger or smaller is the GNP per capita in your country than that in the middle-income country? [Answers will vary.]

3. If a country slows down its population growth rate, is its GNP per capita likely to increase or decrease? [Increase, because there are fewer people to share the wealth than there would have been at the original rate of population growth.]

4. Based on the Text and your own knowledge, list three possible social and three possible economic reasons for the difference in productivity between high-income and low- and middle-income countries. [Social: population growth rate, health of population, education and work skills of population. Economic: value and variety of exports, access to world markets, wages and prices for goods and services, savings and investment rate, access to raw materials and capital, access to machines and technology, government policies.]