Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world and Iran is a huge country with lots of people that also happens to be among the top energy exporting countries in the world.
Still is. Even with sanctions in place they are still top 10-20 in the world for exports of oil, natural gas, and electricity. They produce so much of all three that they could meet their own energy needs about 20x over for the foreseeable future, and people still believe the nuclear program is for energy.
Dudi..because I'm not a fool. Like I said they have HUGE surpluses of oil, natural gas, and electricity. They're also on the cutting edge in terms of geothermal power. Their economy is in the shitter and they have no reason at all to be investing resources into nuclear energy, especially given all the trouble this has caused for then internationally. You'd have to be an infant to think that Iran wants nuclear power to meet its energy needs.
In 2011 the Rand Corporation surveyed Iranian citizens and found that 41% strongly opposed development of nuclear weapons, while 32% strongly favored it. By contrast, 87% strongly support developing nuclear energy for civilian use. As the country is ruled by an ayatollah with supreme authority and no checks on his power, I'm not sure if public opinion really matters, though. And I'm sure that the government has many people there believing in their bullpoop.
oh.... I figured it out.... that "purchasing power parity" BS.... That's baloney. Who cares how much stuff the people in the country can buy with their money? That doesn't have any objective effect on the real size of the economy compared to the rest of the world. But.. okay.
Completely agree. PPP makes some sense when comparing standard of living of individuals within countries, but no sense when comparing economies between countries!
2 things confuse me here: 1) Your choice of PPP instead of nominal. 2) The text on the front page saying "In a few more years, we might have a new #1." According to GDP PPP, China is the #1 and will remain there for decades.
D'oh! A few years happened, and now we do have a new #1, (at least in terms of PPP). As to PPP vs nominal, I think PPP is better because currency fluctuations matter less. The Canadian dollar recently declined from about $1 USD to about 75 cents. Using nominal GDP, this would mean that Canada's GDP declined by 25%. But of course this never happened. The actual amount of goods and services that Canada produced didn't vary nearly as much.
But the value of those goods and services decreased substantially, as did Canadians' ability to acquire goods and services from outside of Canada, as did the Canadian government's ability to pay debts etc. This all has very real effects of the country's economic "size" in an international sense.
And, while, yes, nominal GDP is effected by currency fluctuations, PPP is hardly immune from that, as currency values have a great impact on the cost of goods and services in a country for a variety of different reasons. So, nominal GDP is affected by the vagaries of currency fluctuation, and PPP is affected by that, plus a whole set of other vagaries placed on top of that, such as tax and tariff fluctuations, wage fluctuations, oil price fluctuations, and fluctuations in the price of a cheeseburger.
@kalbahamut: Your logic works the other way, too, though. Canada exports a lot of material to the United States, so when the dollar goes down it doesn't slow down the economy really at all. Additionally, I believe Canada is still a net exporter. The lower dollar can be a boon to the large primary resource sector of the Canadian export economy. For instance, the wages that lumber mills paid stayed the same as the dollar dropped, but profits increased because of the exchange rate.
Egypt's economy in real dollars is somewhere between 44th and 51st in the world. Using PPP gives them a huge boost because while the economy is growing the currency has been greatly devalued and though inflation is very high the price of goods still aren't going up as fast as the pound is going down.
I was amazed I got all of these right. I had 1:24 remaining at 7:06:24 PM on February 26, 2019. Thailand was the last one I guessed, as I sorted through my mind what the most likely countries were.
-TERRIBLE MISTAKE- I was thinking about Egypt at first, but I didn't think it would be on there so I thought I might aswell leave it. I was missing one more and that one turned out to be Egypt! :(
Iran and Turkey are much more populous than Poland. Also, the GDPs are calculated using the purchasing power parity (ppp) method, which means that cheaper countries get a boost. Iran and Turkey have a lower cost of living than Poland.
it's not rich. But the economy has been doing well and they have a pretty large population. Also, the country is relatively cheap, so if you use actual GDP figures and not PPP they drop to 22nd-25th.
I think it would be better if this quiz was named "Countries with the Biggest GDPs (PPP)" and if we had another featured quiz named "Countries with the Biggest GDPs (nominal)". It would clear out the confusion and disagreements in the comments, and also we would have one more quiz to solve and get points! :)
A bit confusing that the title uses GDP but the answer table uses GNP. I guess it doesn't affect the ability to complete it in any measurable way, though
If China being ahead of the US is because of China handling the virus "well" I'm not sure I believe that. China is very insecure about it's image around the world to the point that it has bought into certain western news organizations and lied about handling covid well. You can't trust a government who uses propaganda to suppress anything which could make it look bad.
Right, because no Western nation would never use propaganda to suppress anything which could make it look bad — especially not the famously non-propagandistic USA.
HOW CAN USA BE NUMBER 2 (AFTER CHINA) AND YET THE BASIS OF THE GDP MEASUREMENT IS USA DOLLARS (USD)? If we have to compare then we should adopt a Universal Standard that can bring out the real situation neutrally.
I'd say we should change this quiz into one that's based on GDP that is calculated nominally, and create a separate quiz for GDP (PPP).
GDP (nominal) is more commonly used to simply measure the sizes/production/output of national economies and as GDP (PPP) is more often used for purposes related to standards of living or the market sizes due to their inherent characteristics.
(Allow me to write up rest of the response below as I lack the space to do it here alone)
You've formerly stated that the reason you used GDP (PPP) over nominal GDP is because GDP (PPP) is less affected by fluctuations in currency values, which is true and which is the reason why GDP (PPP) is commonly used for calculation of the market sizes and all. However when we are to compare national economies and their capabilities, GDP (PPP) is often considered unfit for purpose. There is a reason why nominal GDP is preferred in such fields despite its woes which GDP PPP may solve.
Firstly, one big problem is that GDP (PPP) fails to take account of different industrial structures, qualities of products and how products are valued in different countries and therefore lacks accuracy - especially when comparing between developed and developing nations, with differing industrial structures and qualities of goods and services. Now how can this lead to a fall in accuracy one may ask, so let's take an example.
Haiti - though I'd hate to say this - is quite well known for its poverty and I'll assume that you are aware of this too. Its nominal GDP is at 761$ but its GDP PPP is at 1810$ and here you may see a huge discrepancy. The cause of discrepancy comes from the industrial context of Haiti. Haiti, like many other developing nations, lacks the industrial base to produce a lot of consumer goods on its own and thus it is mostly reliant on neighbouring DR for import of such. Now you may probably see the problem here. Though Haitians suffer from high living costs due to being charged the same prices for consumer goods as neighbouring DR (Because, it's not like DR would sell products at a devalued price because Haitians have a lower income than they have) while PPP will adjust the influence of the exchange rate when calculating the GDP PPP. Thus by using the GDP PPP, Haitians' purchasing power in actuality will be overvalued, hence the inaccuracy. And the Haitians are in good company as many othe
LEDCs also suffer from high living costs ignored by the GDP PPP, being reliant on imports for daily consumer goods. There is a reason why there was a time when Luanda was ranked the most expensive city in the World.
Plus there is a general argument that exchange rates are inseparable when we're to measure and compare the economic powers of countries. This is a quote from a WSJ article: ''China can’t buy missiles and ships and Iphones and German cars in PPP currency. They have to pay at prevailing exchange rates. That’s why exchange rate valuations are seen as more important when comparing the power of nations.". The quote saying the PPP is not adequate to measure what an economy can exactly do.
Sorry for that long read but if you did make it to this point, please do consider making the said changes? While GDP PPP is an undoubtedly useful figure, it seems quite inappropriate to use for a quiz that's "biggest economies quiz" - or so my opinion goes. Uh thank you for reading..?
Also a relatively minor issue: the column of the quiz shows GNP where it should actually be GDP - those two are completely different things.
GNP measures the production done by the nationals of the country while GDP measures production done in a country. For example, GDP of the US would include the production/consumption activities of an Indian tech worker in California while excluding production done by an Apple factory in India while the GNP would exclude the former and include the latter. The difference being what's called 'Net Factor Incomes from Abroad (NFIA)'
Missed taiwan and Poland
We all know how massive Nauru's economy is.
Got Taiwan 1st
And, while, yes, nominal GDP is effected by currency fluctuations, PPP is hardly immune from that, as currency values have a great impact on the cost of goods and services in a country for a variety of different reasons. So, nominal GDP is affected by the vagaries of currency fluctuation, and PPP is affected by that, plus a whole set of other vagaries placed on top of that, such as tax and tariff fluctuations, wage fluctuations, oil price fluctuations, and fluctuations in the price of a cheeseburger.
that was the exact same thing I was thinking
Maybe it was different in 2019, but we're only a bit behind Nigeria. And they have double our population.
What a shame.-.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity
Was this is a mistake?
Am I talking to anyone over here so?🤔🤗🤣
GDP (nominal) is more commonly used to simply measure the sizes/production/output of national economies and as GDP (PPP) is more often used for purposes related to standards of living or the market sizes due to their inherent characteristics.
(Allow me to write up rest of the response below as I lack the space to do it here alone)
Firstly, one big problem is that GDP (PPP) fails to take account of different industrial structures, qualities of products and how products are valued in different countries and therefore lacks accuracy - especially when comparing between developed and developing nations, with differing industrial structures and qualities of goods and services. Now how can this lead to a fall in accuracy one may ask, so let's take an example.
Plus there is a general argument that exchange rates are inseparable when we're to measure and compare the economic powers of countries. This is a quote from a WSJ article: ''China can’t buy missiles and ships and Iphones and German cars in PPP currency. They have to pay at prevailing exchange rates. That’s why exchange rate valuations are seen as more important when comparing the power of nations.". The quote saying the PPP is not adequate to measure what an economy can exactly do.
Sorry for that long read but if you did make it to this point, please do consider making the said changes? While GDP PPP is an undoubtedly useful figure, it seems quite inappropriate to use for a quiz that's "biggest economies quiz" - or so my opinion goes. Uh thank you for reading..?
GNP measures the production done by the nationals of the country while GDP measures production done in a country. For example, GDP of the US would include the production/consumption activities of an Indian tech worker in California while excluding production done by an Apple factory in India while the GNP would exclude the former and include the latter. The difference being what's called 'Net Factor Incomes from Abroad (NFIA)'