Economics Challenge: Which Nation is Wealthier?

Most people can only get 50%!

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Do you think you know what countries are wealthy and what countries are poor? Try this game I developed several years ago for my intro to macroeconomics class. Below are several pairs of countries. All you have to do is pick which one is wealthier. Specifically, which country has the higher GDP per capita. For the nerds, I’m using GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP), which accounts for the differences in the cost of living across countries. My source is IMF data for 2022. Wealthier DOES NOT mean a bigger economy. India has a much larger GDP than Denmark, but Denmark has a much larger GDP per capita than India; India is the bigger economy, Denmark is the wealthier economy. I’m asking you to choose which is wealthier.

Note that none of these pairs are particularly close; the wealthier country will have a GDP per capita at least 50% higher than the poorer country.

PLEASE DO NOT CHEAT. Obviously you can look them all up online. Or you can just scroll to the bottom of this post, which is where the answers are. Also, the questions are anonymous; I can’t even see who answered the questions at all, let alone who answered what.

For each pair of countries answer the question: which has the higher GDP per capita?

Answers Below!

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Answers:

United States: $75,180 (Japan: $48,813)

Argentina: $26,074 (Albania: $17,858)

Ghana: $6,780 (Mozambique: $1,457)

Costa Rica: $24,837 (Vietnam: $13,075)

Taiwan: $69,500 (Portugal: $42,067)