Wealth per Capita by Country in Europe: The Map

Credit Suisse recently published a study comparing the wealth (net worth) of an average adult (as an individual, not the wealth of the whole state divided by its population) in different countries, and the differences are stunning. Switzerland leads the chart with staggering 567,000 dollars, and the only other European nations with values over 300,000 are Iceland, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Luxembourg.

On the other side of the spectrum are Eastern European nations, reaching values as low as USD 1,437 for Ukraine, 1,551 for Belarus, and 3,104 for Moldova. It should be noted, however, that Credit Suisse described the quality of sources of data for these countries as “poor”, so the figures may be somewhat inaccurate.

If you want the share the map, please, share a link to this article rather than just the picture. Note: The underlying blank map was made by Tindo and licensed from fotolia.com.

Source: Jakub Marian's Language learning, Science and Art

The World Map of Debt

JEFF DESJARDINS

EVERY COUNTRY IS SCALED BASED ON ITS DEBT-TO-GDP

What if we were to redraw the world map based on the sustainability of national debt levels?

Countries that are smaller in size, but that have big debt loads, would stand out more. If we used debt-to-GDP as scaling criteria, Japan would become the largest country on our new map. Japan holds 19.99% of all global debt despite only having about 6% of the world’s economic production. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 230%.

Greece and Italy, two medium-sized European countries, would be bigger than North America as a whole. That said, the United States does hold an extreme amount of debt itself, equal to an astounding 29.05% of global debt. It is just masked more because of the country’s significant GDP. We have also looked at the United States another way in the past, and by the measure of debt-to-revenue, the US has the 2nd largest debt burden in the world.

On the opposite side of the question, there are large countries that have less debt – they disappear from the map almost completely. Australia, a giant land mass, is reduced to a tiny island with its load of 29% debt-to-GDP. Nigeria shrinks to a tiny speck on the map with an 11% ratio.

Original graphic by: HowMuch.net

Source

The Economic Cost Of Rising Sea Levels

As mentioned before, change is inevitable. We have seen rising and lowering of sea levels over time. Globally there has been a 250m high terrace as well as a terrace and subterranean canyons resulting from lower sea levels of the past. This paper from NASA illustrates the cost of raising sea levels and it also illustrates the cost of our inability to adapt and plan for environmental change. We are really the most un-adaptable of all organisms.

Source: National Geographic Magazine

Economic Assessment of the Use Value of Geospatial Information

Journal article by Richard Bernknopf and Carl Shapiro

Abstract

Geospatial data inform decision makers. An economic model that involves application of spatial and temporal scientific, technical, and economic data in decision making is described. The value of information (VOI) contained in geospatial data is the difference between the net benefits (in present value terms) of a decision with and without the information. A range of technologies is used to collect and distribute geospatial data. These technical activities are linked to examples that show how the data can be applied in decision making, which is a cultural activity. The economic model for assessing the VOI in geospatial data for decision making is applied to three examples: (1) a retrospective model about environmental regulation of agrochemicals; (2) a prospective model about the impact and mitigation of earthquakes in urban areas; and (3) a prospective model about developing private–public geospatial information for an ecosystem services market. Each example demonstrates the potential value of geospatial information in a decision with uncertain information.

For full text follow link here.