Help; Characteristics that determine countries income level (1 Viewer)

[BreeF]

Sorry, new to this, not sure if i am posting this in the right spot!
For economics,
What characteristics determine whether a country is a high, medium or low income country?

Help is greatly appreciated!
B x

 

[gnrlies]

Sorry, new to this, not sure if i am posting this in the right spot!
For economics,
What characteristics determine whether a country is a high, medium or low income country?

Help is greatly appreciated!
B x

Usually asking broad questions will get very few responses.

Try to do some research yourself, and then ask a more specific question. Otherwise its a bit like asking 'whats the meaning of life'.

To answer your question, the characteristic is income!

High income countries have high income, etc etc...

I wouldn't be game to state an actual level of income, but it is quite clear that countries such as the USA and Australia are high income countries relatively speaking.

If you are really asking what characteristics allow a country to be 'high income' (or perhaps not), I would say that the one thing all high income countries have in common, is clearly established property rights. I might seem trivial, but in fact it is probably the one thing that separates high income economies from low income economies. People might say things like "natural resource endowments" and to some extent this is true, but there are many rich countries with little or no natural resources. Established property rights facilitates economic relationships and allow economies to prosper.

There are other factors of course, but in mny view, everything that differentiates between high and low income countries comes down to property rights in some way or another (for example something like protectionism can be thought of in this context because it is a restriction on the private property rights of inidividuals to trade their produce). But this is just a way of thinking. It probably wont help you in your research task.