It's go time!

Hello!

Got my bags and passport and I'm on my way to London.

More news when I get to the hotel. Song for the day:

Bye!

Quality of Life

Kia Ora!

This time we'll discuss life quality in New Zealand, comparing with Portugal and maybe other reference countries.Measuring economic welfare is not an exact science, but we can use some indicators and statistics to get a general idea. 

nationranking.wordpress.com

New Zealand was considered the 8th best place to live in 2001, while Portugal was considered 22nd. Iceland takes the first plane with an index of 0.935 (closest to one).



Now we'll explore in some detail a few of the most used indicators:

1. GDP - Gross Domestic Product

GDP is the most widely know indicator of economic welfare, but it's not the most useful in estimating life quality. Below you have a map of world countries by GDP and you can see that New Zealand and Portugal fall in sequent categories - 100 to 200 billion US$ for NZ and 200 to 500 billion Us$ for Portugal.

World countries by GDP (nominal) in US$ - Wikipedia

Recent estimates state that Portugal and New Zealand have a nominal GDP of 212 billion US$ and 181 billion US$, respectively. If we consider that the population of Portugal and New Zealand is 10.5 billion and 4.5 billion people respectively, we can see that GDP per capita is quite different, which takes us to our next indicator:

2. GDP (PPP) per capita and Gini coefficient

GDP per capita is a more accurate statistic to estimate quality of life than GDP. In order to have a better estimate of the quality of life of a certain country the GDP (PPP) per capita is also used.
PPP means Purchasing Power Parity, and it is arguably more useful when comparing living standards because it includes the cost of living and inflation rates, rather than using exchange rates only which may distort real differences in income.

Bellow a map of world countries by GDP(PPP) per capita:

World countries by GDP (PPP) per capita - Wikipedia

Portugal and New Zealand are on the same category on this map (from 2012), 35 to 55 thousand US$. But if we consult a recent list (2013 - see here) we can see that Portugal in ranked 46th with 23K US$ and New Zealand is ranked 30th with 30K US$. This is the first indicator that New Zealand has a better quality of life than Portugal.

Now let's take a look at the Gini coefficient. This measures the income distribution of a nation's residents. A coefficient of zero means perfect equality, everyone has the same income, and a coefficient of 100 expresses maximum inequality, for example one person receives all the income.

Gini coefficient around the world - Wikipedia

From this map we observe that Portugal has a higher index than New Zealand, but recent estimates show that the indexes are 34 and 36, respectively. Values are very similar and both countries are considered medium inequality.

3. Unemployment

Here Portugal doesn't stand a chance. We are in the middle of an economic crisis and our unemployment rate is higher than usual.

World Map of unemployment rate - Wikimedia Commons

Recent estimates state Portugal's unemployment rate at 15.3% and New Zealand's at 6.0%.
OECD considers "full-employment unemployment rate" of 4 to 6.4%, so New Zealand is in perfect condition.

4. Air Pollution Index

The Air Pollution Index (API) is a simple and generalized way to describe the air quality, it is calculated from several sets of air pollution data.

http://www.numbeo.com/pollution/rankings.jsp

Christchurch was considered the less polluted city in the world (!), with an API of 9.31. Lisbon has an API of 34.61, ranked 60th. Not much to compare.

4. Human Development Index

The last topic I'll cover is HDI which can be viewed as an index of “potential” human development.

Both Portugal and New Zealand are considered countries with very high human development:

HDI map - Wikipedia

New Zealand is ranked 6th worldwide and Portugal 43rd. The first place is occupied by Norway, followed by Australia.

(There is a new index called IDHD - inequality-adjusted HDI, but I won't cover it for now.)


So, that's all, it was a lot of work this post. I hope you liked it!

See you next time!

New Zealand Currency

The currency in New Zealand is the New Zealand Dollar (NZD or NZ$) and it's used since 1967, after the New Zealand Pound.

Today NZD1 is worth approximately €0.62 or US$0.85, and it's on its lowest value since mid May - guess it's a good time to buy some NZD. (To USD and to EUR)

They have the usual system of coins and banknotes, with coins of 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, and 50c:

Coins - http://www.teara.govt.nz/

New Zealand’s banknotes are printed on polymer, which is a type of polypropylene plastic:

Banknotes - http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/notes_and_coins/notes/

The Reserve Bank began circulating polymer banknotes in May 1999. Until then, New Zealand’s banknotes were printed on paper made from cotton. I guess this ones are more fade and tear resistant.
I believe they also have "plasic" money in Australia, not sure.

See ya.