| There is a huge disparity between the living standards of developed and developing countries.
One of the key drivers of this disparity is the parallel disparity in economic
wealth - with richer countries having much higher standards of living than their
poorer counterparts.
As developing countries grow their economies and narrow the gap in economic wealth, the gap in
living standards also starts to narrow.
We have examined the rate at which living standards improve in developing countries using United Nations data on
levels of health, sanitation, nutrition and education.
The rate of improvement depends on the countries current level of development - with countries at the earliest stages of their development
journey showing the biggest gains from economic growth.
For example, injecting
$100 million into the economy of a developing country such as Kenya has a
vastly higher impact than injecting $100 million into a rich Western
economy such as The Netherlands.
We use the rate of improvement to give a high level estimate of the number of people who
typically have their standard of living improved for a given increase in economic activity. |