Õppetund Itaalia majandusest. Algajatele

Mul on üks väga hea majandusdoktorandist sõber, kellega me aeg-ajalt ikka maailma asju arutame. Ühel neist järjekordsetest õhtutest tuli juttu itaallaste rikkusest ja itaalia majandusest üldiselt. Järgmisel päeval sain ma ühe toreda emaili, kus on puust ja punaselt selgeks tehtud, et riik, kus me praegu elame, indeed, on väga rikas. Igas mõttes.

E-mail ise oli väga tore, naersin tükk aega kui lugesin, aga samas sain ka mõne olulise fakti võrra jälle targemaks. Tahan mõnda lõiku sellest teiega jagada:

[...]Size of the economy is measured using the concept of "Gross Domestic Product": market value of things that produced in a country (independently of the nationality of that production: for instance, Volkswagen cars produced in Palmela count for the Portuguese GDP). GDP excludes black markets and other "non official" forms of production: for instance, services provided by housewives and househusbands are not counted as these services do not pass through a market.[...]

Tegelikult on päris huvitav teada, et Itaalia oli 2008. aastal GDP alusel USA, Jaapani, Hiina, Saksa ja UK järel maailma rikkaimate riikide edetabeli seitsmendal kohal. Nii et siin pole imestada midagi, et hinnad nii kõrged on..

[...]Now, quality of living: the most simple measure of quality of living is to divided GDP by the population (GDP per capita).

This indicator has two great problems: does not account for income inequality: Ka and Ri can be extremely rich because they eat 20 chocolates per day, but if Ri eats 19 of them and Ka only 1, chocolates per capita will give a wrong idea of the quality of living: it is misleading to think that in Pietrafitta economy 10 chocolates per capita are eaten.

The other problem is that people's quality of living does not depend only on the amount of goods and services produced: quality of the atmosphere, levels of pollution and so on are also important, even whether is important, but they are not included in GDP per capita. Advantage: very simple to compute. [...]

Itaalia oli 2008 aastal GDP per capita paremusjärjestuses 21. kohal (võrdluseks- Eesti oli 41).

Human development index (HDI): measures economy, life expectancy and education: an improvement one compared with GDP per capita PPP.

HDI nimekirjas on Itaalia 18ndal ja Eesti 40ndal kohal.

Seega kokkuvõtteks:

Italy is no doubt one of the biggest economies of the world; its position in the ranking of the biggest economies of the world has changed mostly because of the rise of China, Brazil, India and Russia (BRIC countries). In terms of HDI, Italy is in the group of "very high human development". Interesting to note that its position on the HDI ranking is superior than its position on both GDP per capita rankings: this means that there are countries with higher GDP per capita than Italy that (unfortunately) have a much lower record of life expectancy and education than Italy. Finally, in terms of income inequality, Italy has a good level considering the whole world but has just a middle level considering Europe only (there are about 15 European countries less equal than Italy and about 23 countries more equal than Italy).

Nii tore, kui sul on tarku sõpru eksole? :)