Question

5. The International Property Right Index scores countries based on the legal and political environment and how well property rights are protected. Go online and find a recent ranking. Choose three countries with high scores and three countries with low scores. Then find estimates of GDP per person in each of these six countries. What pattern do you find? Give two possible interpretations of the pattern.

Answer 1

Answer:

I used the most recent figures of the international property rights index (year 2019), and the most recent GDP per capita estimamtes by the IMF in purchasing power parity. (year 2019)

Three countries with high scores, with GDP per capita (PPP):

1. Finland - score of 8.712 - U$ 46.430
2. Switzerland - score of 8.571 - U$ 64.649
3. United States - score of 8.202 - U$ 62.606

Three countries with low scores, with GDP per capita (PPP):

1. Ukraine - score of 4.432 - U$ 9.283
2. Pakistan - score of 3.874 - U$ 5.680
3. Haiti - score of 2.703 - U$ 1.864

The pattern that we find is that there is a strong correlation between the International Property Right Index scores and the GDP per capita figures. This is consistent with the findings in other similar rankings such as the Global Competitiveness Report, published by the World Economic Forum, and the Economic Freedom Index, published by the Heritage Foundation.

What can be interpreted is that property rights, and the strong enforcement of those property rights promote economic development and growth. This is because the protection of private property stimulates human action. For example, the United States has a strong judiciary, and rule of law. In this country, people can invest their money in a project with the certainty that those invesments will not be expropriated by an arbitrary judiciary. This promotes development because investing leads to higher economic output.

Those same incentives do not exist in countries that do not enforce property rights, and that is one of the main reasons why they are poor.