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Developed country
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- "A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment." (Kofi Annan)
The term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this.
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- "A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment." (Kofi Annan)
The term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria. Which criteria, and which countries are classified as being developed, is a contentious issue and there is fierce debate about this. Economic criteria have tended to dominate discussions. One such criteria is income per capita and countries with high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita being described as developed countries. Another economic criteria is industrialization. Countries in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors of industry dominate being described as developed. More recently another measure, the Human Development Index, which combines with an economic measure, national income, with other measures, indices for life expectancy and education has become prominent. Developed countries being those with a high (HDI) rating. However, many anomalies exist when determining "developed" status by whichever measure is used.
Countries not fitting such definitions may be referred to as developing countries or failed states.
Similar terms
Terms similar to developed country include advanced country, industrialized country, more developed country (MDC), more economically developed country (MEDC), Global North country, first world country, and post-industrial country. The term industrialized country may be somewhat ambiguous, as industrialization is an ongoing process that is hard to define. The term MEDC is one used by modern geographers to specifically describe the status of the countries referred to: more economically developed. The first industrialised country was England, followed by Germany, France, the remainder of the United Kingdom and other Western European countries. According to economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, however, the current divide between the developed and developing world is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century.
Definition
According to the United Nations Statistics Division,
- There is no established convention for the designation of "developed" and "developing" countries or areas in the United Nations system.
And it notes that
- The designations "developed" and developing" are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country or area in the development process.
The UN also notes
- In common practice, Japan in Asia, Canada and the United States in northern America, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania, and Europe are considered "developed" regions or areas. In international trade statistics, the Southern African Customs Union is also treated as a developed region and Israel as a developed country; countries emerging from the former Yugoslavia are treated as developing countries; and countries of eastern Europe and of the Commonwealth of Independent States (code 172) in Europe are not included under either developed or developing regions.
In the 21st century, the original East Asian Tiger countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and the Taiwan) are considered "developed" region or areas, along with Cyprus, Israel, Malta, and Slovenia, are considered near developed "developing" region or areas.
The People's Republic of China is generally recognised as a developing country. However, Hong Kong and Macau, which are Special Administrative Regions of PRC are separate economic entities within it, and are recognized as developed. Also, the Taiwan, is clearly a separate economic entity, regardless of its exact status with mainland China, and is also recognizedas an industrialized developed country.
According to the classification from IMF before April 2004, the countries of Eastern Europe (including Slovenia which still belongs to "Eastern Europe Group" in the UN institutions) as well as the former Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) countries (including those in Asia) and Mongolia, were not included under either developed or developing regions, but rather were referred to as "countries in transition"; however they are now widely regarded (in the international reports) as "developing countries".
Human Development Index
The UN HDI is a statistical measure that gauges a country's level of human development. While there is a strong correlation between having a high HDI score and a prosperous economy, the UN points out that the HDI accounts for more than income or productivity. Unlike GDP per capita or per capita income, the HDI takes into account how income is turned "into education and health opportunities and therefore into higher levels of human development." A few examples are Italy and the United States. Despite a relatively large difference in GDP per capita, both countries rank roughly equal in term of overall human development. Since 1980, Norway (2001-2006), Japan (1990-91 and 1993), Canada (1992 and 1994-2000) and Iceland (2007-08) have had the highest HDI score. Countries with a score of over 0.800 are considered to have a "high" standard of human development. The top 30 countries have scores ranging from 0.912 in Cyprus to 0.968 in Iceland. Several small countries, such as Andorra, Liechtenstein and Macau were not reviewed by the United Nations. Thus, these countries have not received an official HDI score.
Many countries listed by IMF or CIA as "advanced" (as of 2008), possess an HDI over 0.9 (as of 2006). Many countries possessing an HDI of 0.9 and over (as of 2004), are also listed by IMF or CIA as "advanced" (as of 2007). Thus, many "advanced economies" (as of 2008) are characterized by an HDI score of 0.9 or higher (as of 2006).
The latest index was released on December 18, 2008. This so-called "statistical update" covers the period up to 2006 and was published without an accompanying report on human development. The update is relevant due to newly released estimates of purchasing power parities (PPP), implying substantial adjustments for many countries, resulting in changes in HDI values and, in many cases, HDI ranks.
- 0.968
- 0.968
- 0.967 ( 1)
- 0.965 ( 1)
- 0.960
- 0.958 ( 3)
- 0.958 ( 1)
- 0.956
- 0.956 ( 9)
- 0.955 ( 3)
- 0.955 ( 1)
- 0.954 ( 1)
- 0.952 ( 1)
- 0.951 ( 1)
- 0.950 ( 3)
- 0.949 ( 3)
- 0.948 ( 1)
- 0.947 ( 6)
- 0.945 ( 1)
- 0.944 ( 1)
- 0.942 ( 5)
- 0.942 ( 1)
- 0.940 ( 1)
- 0.930 ( 1)
- 0.928 ( 1)
- 0.923 ( 1)
- 0.919 ( 3)
- 0.918 ( 3)
- 0.912 ( 4)
- 0.912 ( 2)
Other lists of Developed Countries
Only three institutions have produced lists of "developed countries". The three institutions and their lists are the UN list (shown above), the CIA's list which is not included because it is of an old vintage incoporating factual errors and the anomalous identification of Turkey and South Africa as developed countries, and the FTSE Group's list, whose list is not included because its association of developed countries with countries with both high incomes and developed markets is not deemed as directly relevant here. However many institutions have created lists which are sometimes refered to when people are discussing developed countries. The IMF identifies 32 "advanced economies", The OECD, also known widely known as the 'developed countries club'
has 30 members. The World Bank identifies 66 "high income countries". The EIU's Quality-of-life survey and a list of countries with welfare states are also included here. The criteria for using all these list and for countries inclusion on these lists is often not properly spelt out and several of these lists are based on old data.
IMF advanced economy list
According to the International Monetary Fund the following 32 countries are classified as "advanced economies":
The CIA has a modified version of an old version of the IMF's list of Advanced Economies. The CIA notes that the IMF's Advanced Economies list "would presumably also cover" some smaller countries. They are:
The CIA list doesn't include Cyprus, Slovenia and Malta which have all been added to the IMF's list since the CIA's made its presumptions about the IMF list.
High-income OECD members
There are 27 High-income OECD members, although there are three other OECD members (Mexico, Poland and Turkey) that are not high-income members. The CIA, in its developed country list, implies that developed countries are the OECD members plus Bermuda, Israel, South Africa, and the European ministates. As of 2009, the High-income OECD membership is as follows:
21 countries in Europe:
2 countries in Asia:
2 countries in North America:
2 countries in Oceania:
World Bank high-income economies
"High income economies" are defined by the World Bank as countries with a Gross National Income per capita of $11,456 or more. According to the United Nations definition some high income countries may also be developing countries. Thus, a high income country may be classified as either developed or developing.
According to the World Bank, the following 66 countries and territories are classified as "high-income economies":
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- Channel Islands
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High-income economy not classified by World Bank:
Holy See
Quality-of-life survey
Research about standards of living and quality of life by the Economist Intelligence Unit resulted in a quality-of-life index. As of 2005, the 30 countries with the highest index are:
- Ireland
- Switzerland
- Norway
- Luxembourg
- Sweden
- Australia
- Iceland
- Italy
- Denmark
- Spain
- Singapore
- Finland
- United States
- Canada
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
- Japan
- Hong Kong
- Portugal
- Austria
- Taiwan
- Greece
- Cyprus
- Belgium
- France
- Germany
- Slovenia
- Malta
- United Kingdom
- South Korea
Welfare states
Currently modern, expansive welfare states are still the exclusive domain and hallmark of the developed nations, commonly constituting at least 20% of GDP, with the largest Scandinavian welfare states constituting over 40% of GDP. Prominent sociologist Gosta Esping-Andersen states that the developed nations have developed a new kind of capitalism exclusive to them, which he dubbs "welfare capitalism." This type of capitalism seeks to ensure economic security, independence, stablity and opportunity by creating expansive public sectors that fuse public policy and market forces. According to Esping-Andersen, welfare state policies and economic forces are completely interwoven in these nations, with public policy shaping such basic market attributes as consumer demand, capital stock build-up, labor pariticipation rates, worker productivity and the extent and ramifications of the business cycle. These modern welfare states, which largely arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seeing their greatest expansion in the mid 20th century, have proven themselves highly effective in reducing relative as well as absolute poverty in all high-income OECD countries.
| Country | Absolute poverty rate
(threshold set at 40% of U.S. median household income) | Relative poverty rate |
|---|
| Pre-transfer | Post-transfer | Pre-transfer | Post-transfer | | | 23.7 | 5.8 | 14.8 | 4.8 |  | 9.2 | 1.7 | 12.4 | 4.0 | | | 22.1 | 7.3 | 18.5 | 11.5 |  | 11.9 | 3.7 | 12.4 | 3.1 |  | 26.4 | 5.9 | 17.4 | 4.8 | | | 15.2 | 4.3 | 9.7 | 5.1 | | | 12.5 | 3.8 | 10.9 | 9.1 | | | 22.5 | 6.5 | 17.1 | 11.9 | | | 36.1 | 9.8 | 21.8 | 6.1 | | | 26.8 | 6.0 | 19.5 | 4.1 | | | 23.3 | 11.9 | 16.2 | 9.2 | | | 16.8 | 8.7 | 16.4 | 8.2 | | | 21.0 | 11.7 | 17.2 | 15.1 | | | 30.7 | 14.3 | 19.7 | 9.1 |
Summary
Below is a "summary" table which has been produced by Wikipedia editors as a summary of the information on this page. It should be used with caution. Different data sources for the different lists are of different vintages and some of the lists are based on each other. Readers are warned that it is not intended that the "all" column should be used to indicate that those countries on more lists are more developed than those on less.
| Countries | HIE OECD | CIA AE | IMF AE | WB HIE | HDI=0.9 | QoL Top 30 | All |
|---|
| | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 6 | | | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 5 | | | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 5 | | | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | 5 | | | NO | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | 4 |  | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | NO | 4 |  | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | NO | 4 | | | NO | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | 4 | | | NO | NO | YES | YES | NO | YES | 3 | | | NO | YES | | YES | YES | NO | 3 | | | NO | YES | NO | YES | | NO | 2 | | | NO | NO | NO | YES | YES | NO | 2 | | | NO | YES | | YES | | | 2 | | | NO | NO | NO | YES | YES | NO | 2 | | | YES | NO | YES | NO | NO | NO | 2 | | | NO | | YES | YES | | NO | 2 | | | NO | | YES | YES | | NO | 2 | | | YES | NO | YES | NO | NO | NO | 2 | | | NO | NO | NO | YES | YES | NO | 2 | | | NO | YES | | YES | | NO | 2 | | | NO | | | YES | YES | NO | 2 | | | NO | YES | NO | YES | | NO | 2 | | | YES | NO | NO | YES | NO | NO | 2 | | | NO | NO | NO | YES | YES | NO | 2 |
See also
External links
- (advanced economies)
- (quality of life survey)
- [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-b.html The World Factbook] (developed countries)
- (definition)
- (developed regions)
- (high-income economies)
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