Economic Freedom and GDP per capita — Gapminder-style

For a while now I’ve shared common hopes to have the Economic Freedom data take new forms.  The relationship between Economic Freedom and GDP per capita for example is not hard to imagine, however there is always something a bit more compelling about a nice visualization.  Gapminder’s Trendalyzer seemed to have established the perfect format — it was just a matter of time before unique data sets could be plotted in a similar manner.  Google has now made this possible, and with the release of their new spreadsheet gadgets I’ve taken the opportunity to dive into the Economic Freedom data, and add motion.

This first graph compares the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal’s Index of Economic Freedom country scores with GDP per capita in US dollars as reported from the United Nations Common Database the data from 2000–2005.  Colors denote regions.  Size denotes population.

This second graph uses the same data minus some of the clutter.  I’ve selected to display just a few countries which I think are interesting to compare to one another: North Korea and South Korea, China and Hong Kong, Cuba and Spain, and Botswana and Zimbabwe.

A hat-tip to Google for making this powerful tool available at such an accessible level. Now, on with setting free all that interesting information housed in academic jargon, repelling visuals, and bullet-pointed presentations.

And What is Even Worse

"Imagine an alternate world identical to ours save one techno-historical change: video games were invented and popularized before books."

In his book Everything Bad is Good for You, Steven Johnson raises many good questions about the way we perceive popular culture and emphasizes just how much more complex our passive existence would be today compared to just 50 years ago.  i.e. Pong never involved outsourcing to China.

For our next thought experiment, try to imagine an alternate world where the corporation was invented and popularized as an icon of tradition and nostalgia before the mom and pop shop.  What would your parents think!?

Understanding Innovation

I would listen to this three times, at least.  Clayton Christensen’s Capturing the Upside podcast helps to explain everything from how Linux will disrupt more mainstream operating systems, where photovoltaic panels and voice recognition software will find their leverage to greater market share (through Mongolian marketplaces and Lego robots), and even how his own Harvard Business School is threatened by crappy, low cost competition.