Chile: Gapminder

I compared Chile’s Life expectancy at birth with GDP and I realized that from1800 to 1900, there was a great increase in GDP but life expectancy hardly changed at all. This shows the economic growth but lack of economic development in Chile during that period of time. Life expectancy did not start to increase until around 1925 and the graph became steeper and steeper from there but during the war from around 1939, Chile’s GDP had a significant decrease. It returned to its former rate afterwards and continued to climb higher on the life expectancy scale. Otherwise, there Gapminder does not seem to show any ridiculous changes over the years; Chile’s economical growth is very gradual and consistent.

Chile’s Measures to Boost Economic Growth

According to Reuters.com, Chile has taken measures to boost their economic growth, to “modernize” their capital markets, allow easier use of Chilean peso in international financial transactions and to simplify rules governing investments in Chile by nonresidents . Last year, Chile’s economy only grew slightly more than four percent which is their “worst performance in three years”. Since 2006, Chile’s economic growth has slowed to about 6 percent until this year’s estimated four percent. To stimulate growth, the government gave tax breaks to large sized companies which buy fixed assets and  long-term credit lines for medium and small sized companies. Some additional changes have also been made to laws that govern “trade in financial derivatives”.

Fixed Assets: assets and property which cannot easily be converted into cash.

Financial Derivatives: financial contracts whose values are derived from something else.

HDI of Chile

Economic Growth- When there is an increase in the general economy including its capital and consumer goods.

Economic Development- When there is an increase in merit goods or standard of living for the people of the nation.

Sustainable Development- Economic development while sustaining the environment.

HDI- Human Development Index- This shows the three perspectives of human development including a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.

Chile ranks 40 in HDI and its economy has been developing significantly at 0.7%. The HDI is a valid measure of a country’s economy since it depicts the economy through those three aspects. Though it is a useful method of interpreting economic growth and development, this measure cannot provide us with useful information based on other factors such as literacy rate and population below poverty line. Specifically, Chile has a GDP per capita of $14900 and shows significant economic growth. Compared to Bahrain, Chile’s HDI is doing very well since though Chile’s GDP is not very high, its HDI measure is the same.