> Financial Times - September 1, 1999
>
> UNCIVIL SOCIETY
>
> The ill-fated multilateral agreement on investment shows the need to
> confront the claims of pressure groups hostile to globalisation,
> writes Martin Wolf <Martin.Wolf at ft.com>
>
> In 1997, according to the World Bank, the 10 economies with the
> highest incomes per head were, in order, Singapore, the US,
> Switzerland, Hong Kong, Norway, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and
> Canada. Two things should strike anyone who looks at this list:
> first, these are all internationally open, market economies; second,
> seven of them have populations of less than 10m.
Not that long ago, Doug posted a list ranking GDP per employed person (using BLS figures for employment and the World Bank figures for dollar GDP) that went like this:
Germany $77,150 Japan 64,564 France 63,238 U.S. 60,467 Sweden 57,297 Italy 57,135 Netherlands 50,530 UK 48,111 Australia 46,686 Canada 43,594
Which is a very different list that leads to almost the opposite conclusion: that the race goes to the cossetted, and that the big guys are all big. But why should income per head differ so wildly from GDP per employed head?
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com