Standard+of+Living

Standard of Living
People all over the world, regardless of age, culture, gender or language, rely on the economy for their standard of living. Families that live in comfortable homes, drive cars and have holidays have a high standard of living. Alternatively, families that are poorly feed, clothed and housed have a low standard of living. This means that a country's standard of living is closely tied to the quantity of goods and services produced in the economy.

How can we measure a country's standard of living? GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a measure of the total amount of goods and services produced in a country in a particular year.

Measuring GDP is complicated (which is why we leave it to the economists), but at its most basic, the calculation can be done in one of two ways: either by adding up what everyone earned in a year (income approach), or by adding up what everyone spent (expenditure method). Logically, both measures should arrive at roughly the same total.  Make a list of the top countries based on GDP  Now make a list of the top 10 countries according to GDP per capita. In your own words explain the difference between the two lists. Which figure would be best used as a measure of standard of living? What problems are there if we measure standard of living using GDP? Cosider a masive oil spill. Does this increase our standard of living? Would it increase the GDP of a country?  What other ways can be used to measure standard of living? []