Euronomics 1 | Page 7

UK VS Norway A lot of people think that the best way to measure a countries development is to look at the GDP or even to look at the GDP per capita. But the fairest way to look at a countries development is to look and its rank on the Human Development Index (HDI) Topping this index is the treasured Norway, with a score of 0.944 out of 1. Unfortunately, the UK comes it at a sullen 14th with a score of 0.892 out of 1. Not only are Norway doing very well, but the rest of Scandinavia (apart from Finland) make it into the top 15 ahead of the UK. There are a variety of different reasons why this might be, and all of these reasons are to do with how you get a good HDI. Euronomics Essentially the HDI is a collection of statistics including; life expectancy, education as well as the GDP per capita. Around the world people believe that places such as France Germany and the UK are the nice places to be in Europe, but clearly they are wrong, Norway is, according to these statistics, the best place to be in the world. The UK does have a large GDP with $2.68 trillion to Norway’s $513 billion. However, the GDP per capita paints a different picture as here Norway’s is more than double with theirs $100,818 to the UK’s $41,787. This is mainly thanks to the fact that Norway’s population is only 5 million and the UK has a population of 64 million. 7