NationStates Jolt Archive


Determining your national budget

02-01-2004, 18:29
This may seem like a odd first post, but I haven't found a system for determining my national budget that I liked, so I came up with this system:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economic System

This system is designed to determine 3 important economic factors about your nation: GDP per capita, GDP, and your nations annual budget. To determine your nations status, you will need to know these things: nations population, nations economic type (stong, frightening, imploded, ect.), and type of government.
The first thing I did is found a list of economic power of the real nations of the world, from best to worst. I found my list here: Nation Master.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/). Then I found a list of the types of economies in order from best to worse. Then I assigned a real world country to each economy type based on GDP per capita. For example, I determined that there is no real world frightening economy, so the US was put at All Consuming (I ignored Luxembourg). I put the country with the worst economy (East Timor) at imploded. I assumed that there wouldn’t be a direct correlation (i.e. the middle economy on the chart wouldn’t match up with the middle economy of the world. So I guessed that the top economies would be close to each other and then there would be a drop off. I guessed the drop off to start at good. I then filled in the list with countries and made up some numbers for Frightening:

Type-----------GDP per capita--------------Country Rank (GDP per capita)
Frightening----$43,900 per person----------N/a
All Consuming$35,935.02 per person-------2 (USA)
Power House--$31,601.37 per person-------7 (Norway)
Thriving-------$27,540.78 per person-------15 (Aruba)
Very Strong---$20,850.45 per person ------29 (United Arab Emirates)
Strong---------$19,777.88 per person-------35 (Faroe Islands)
Very Good----$16,637.33 per person-------50 (Bahamas, The)
Good----------$12,797.13 per person-------58 (Bahrain)
Reasonable---$8,897.49 per person---------74 (Mexico)
Developing----$6,019.51 per person--------99 (Venezuela)
Fair------------$4,585.24 per person---------115 (Turkmenistan)
Struggling-----$3,159.28 per person---------140 (Syria)
Weak----------$2,307.49 per person---------160 (Tonga)
Fragile---------$1,437.9 per person-----------182 (Togo)
Basket Case---$989.19 per person----------200 (Chad)
Imploded-------$435.64 per person----------225 (East Timor)

Since some of these nations I have never heard of, here is a chart I made with rounded numbers and nations you might have heard of:

Type-----------GDP per capita---------------Economy like…
Frightening----$44,000 per person---------No country on Earth
All Consuming$36,000 per person---------USA
Power House--$31,500 per person---------Switzerland
Thriving-------$27,500 per person---------Japan
Very Strong---$23,500 per person---------UK
Strong---------$21,000 per person---------Israel
Very Good----$15,000 per person---------Czech Republic
Good----------$9,000 per person-----------Mexico
Reasonable---$8,500 per person-----------Russia
Developing----$6000 per person-----------Venezuela
Fair------------$4,500 per person-----------China
Struggling-----$3,000 per person-----------Syria
Weak----------$2,250 per person-----------Cuba
Fragile---------$1,500 per person-----------Cambodia
Basket Case--$1,000 per person-----------Korea, North
Imploded------$500 per person-------------East Timor

Notice that I increased some figures so that the table didn’t drop off as fast. Now we are getting somewhere, using this table you can find important fact #1, your country’s GDP per capita. To calculate your country’s GDP simply multiply your GDP per capita by your population.
The next thing we must do is figure out what percentage of your GDP is your national budget. This varies by government type:

United States style democracy: 10-20%
European style democracy (Socialism and Capitalism): 21-29%
Socialist or Communist completely: 30%-40%
Total Dictatorship: 41%+

To determine what type of government you have, first just see what it says, dictatorship, democracy, or whatever. Another indication is your tax rate; the higher it is the higher percentage of GDP you will have.
Finally, to figure out your nations yearly budget, take your GDP and multiply it by the percentage you got from the step above.

For example, my tiny nation of Greenhome has a population of 6 million, a strong economy, and it is a “New York Times” democracy with about a 20% tax rate. So first I find my GDP per capita, for a strong economy it is $21,000 per person. I then multiply it by my population to get my GDP: 126 billion dollars. Since I am a democracy, I will use 15% of my GDP as my budget. So my nations yearly budget is about 18.9 billion dollars. This seems small but my nation has only 6 million people and I don’t tax them much.

Feel free to comment on this system, or tell me what is wrong with it.
02-01-2004, 18:32
http://www.esyn.org/SOTA/NationStates.html
Easier
02-01-2004, 18:47
http://www.esyn.org/SOTA/NationStates.html
Easier

I(the holy saints) make a shite load of money! yay! now, on to that intergalactic thingy....
Drizzts Army
02-01-2004, 18:49
me too,I make around 3 trillion!
The Holy Saints
02-01-2004, 18:51
... 56 trillion.

but, good so far for ya.
02-01-2004, 23:19
OMG, that site cannot be right, 17 trillion, and I'm tiny!!! I think my way is more realistic...
03-01-2004, 02:27
I've been discussing this issue for the last couple of days ... http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=109868 ... although the second page will probably be of more interest to you

I'll give your system a go and let you know what I think, if you like

Don't let people put you off by saying it's been done already ... If you read the discussion I've linked you to, you'll see that there is no whole-hearted support for the GDP calculator and, indeed, it seems to be held in some disregard by the admin here

I'm desperate to find some sort of realistic (as opposed to realist) way of calculating my finacial resources, so every little helps

Between all the methods suggested, there must be some sort of way forward
Tannemirt
04-01-2004, 16:25
Greenhome's method seems much more reasonable, so I am recommending it to the Albian delegate.

Thank you for the very helpful schedule, which can easily be transferred to a spreadsheet.
Shee City
07-01-2004, 14:19
Greenhome's method seems much more reasonable, so I am recommending it to the Albian delegate.

Thank you for the very helpful schedule, which can easily be transferred to a spreadsheet.

The Albian delegate was well impressed, and will be playing with the stats later on today :)

SC
07-01-2004, 14:35
http://www.esyn.org/SOTA/NationStates.html
Easier

SteamEarth

Population: 274,000,000
Civil Rights: Some
Economy: Good
GDP per Capita: $10,000
GDP: $2,740,000,000,000
National Budget: $485,341,680,000

Percentage of GDP Spent on Defense: 15%
Percentage of Budget Spent on Defense: 84.68%
Military Budget: $411,000,000,000

Enough for:
13,215 F-15Es, or...
20,550 Su-34s, or...
21,861 F-16s, or...
37,363 MiG 29s, or...
95,581 M1A2 Abrams, or...
137,000 T-90s, or...
701,365,187 M-16s, or...
1,370,000,000 AK47s


Ruskkia

Population: 8,000,000
Civil Rights: Below Average
Economy: Struggling
GDP per Capita: $1,000
GDP: $8,000,000,000
National Budget: $863,360,000

Percentage of GDP Spent on Defense: 15%
Percentage of Budget Spent on Defense: 138.99%
Military Budget: $1,200,000,000

Enough for:
38 F-15Es, or...
60 Su-34s, or...
63 F-16s, or...
109 MiG 29s, or...
279 M1A2 Abrams, or...
400 T-90s, or...
2,047,781 M-16s, or...
4,000,000 AK47s
Daistallia
07-01-2004, 14:35
This may seem like a odd first post, but I haven't found a system for determining my national budget that I liked, so I came up with this system:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economic System

This system is designed to determine 3 important economic factors about your nation: GDP per capita, GDP, and your nations annual budget. To determine your nations status, you will need to know these things: nations population, nations economic type (stong, frightening, imploded, ect.), and type of government.
The first thing I did is found a list of economic power of the real nations of the world, from best to worst. I found my list here: Nation Master.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/). Then I found a list of the types of economies in order from best to worse. Then I assigned a real world country to each economy type based on GDP per capita. For example, I determined that there is no real world frightening economy, so the US was put at All Consuming (I ignored Luxembourg). I put the country with the worst economy (East Timor) at imploded. I assumed that there wouldn’t be a direct correlation (i.e. the middle economy on the chart wouldn’t match up with the middle economy of the world. So I guessed that the top economies would be close to each other and then there would be a drop off. I guessed the drop off to start at good. I then filled in the list with countries and made up some numbers for Frightening:

Type-----------GDP per capita--------------Country Rank (GDP per capita)
Frightening----$43,900 per person----------N/a
All Consuming$35,935.02 per person-------2 (USA)
Power House--$31,601.37 per person-------7 (Norway)
Thriving-------$27,540.78 per person-------15 (Aruba)
Very Strong---$20,850.45 per person ------29 (United Arab Emirates)
Strong---------$19,777.88 per person-------35 (Faroe Islands)
Very Good----$16,637.33 per person-------50 (Bahamas, The)
Good----------$12,797.13 per person-------58 (Bahrain)
Reasonable---$8,897.49 per person---------74 (Mexico)
Developing----$6,019.51 per person--------99 (Venezuela)
Fair------------$4,585.24 per person---------115 (Turkmenistan)
Struggling-----$3,159.28 per person---------140 (Syria)
Weak----------$2,307.49 per person---------160 (Tonga)
Fragile---------$1,437.9 per person-----------182 (Togo)
Basket Case---$989.19 per person----------200 (Chad)
Imploded-------$435.64 per person----------225 (East Timor)

Since some of these nations I have never heard of, here is a chart I made with rounded numbers and nations you might have heard of:

Type-----------GDP per capita---------------Economy like…
Frightening----$44,000 per person---------No country on Earth
All Consuming$36,000 per person---------USA
Power House--$31,500 per person---------Switzerland
Thriving-------$27,500 per person---------Japan
Very Strong---$23,500 per person---------UK
Strong---------$21,000 per person---------Israel
Very Good----$15,000 per person---------Czech Republic
Good----------$9,000 per person-----------Mexico
Reasonable---$8,500 per person-----------Russia
Developing----$6000 per person-----------Venezuela
Fair------------$4,500 per person-----------China
Struggling-----$3,000 per person-----------Syria
Weak----------$2,250 per person-----------Cuba
Fragile---------$1,500 per person-----------Cambodia
Basket Case--$1,000 per person-----------Korea, North
Imploded------$500 per person-------------East Timor

Notice that I increased some figures so that the table didn’t drop off as fast. Now we are getting somewhere, using this table you can find important fact #1, your country’s GDP per capita. To calculate your country’s GDP simply multiply your GDP per capita by your population.
The next thing we must do is figure out what percentage of your GDP is your national budget. This varies by government type:

United States style democracy: 10-20%
European style democracy (Socialism and Capitalism): 21-29%
Socialist or Communist completely: 30%-40%
Total Dictatorship: 41%+

To determine what type of government you have, first just see what it says, dictatorship, democracy, or whatever. Another indication is your tax rate; the higher it is the higher percentage of GDP you will have.
Finally, to figure out your nations yearly budget, take your GDP and multiply it by the percentage you got from the step above.

For example, my tiny nation of Greenhome has a population of 6 million, a strong economy, and it is a “New York Times” democracy with about a 20% tax rate. So first I find my GDP per capita, for a strong economy it is $21,000 per person. I then multiply it by my population to get my GDP: 126 billion dollars. Since I am a democracy, I will use 15% of my GDP as my budget. So my nations yearly budget is about 18.9 billion dollars. This seems small but my nation has only 6 million people and I don’t tax them much.

Feel free to comment on this system, or tell me what is wrong with it.

There are already figures floating around for the average per capita GDPs. You didn't figure taxes (except for "I don't tax them much"). Otherwise that is pretty much how one should figure budgets.
Note: the GDP calc. isn't the most accurate, but it is fairly widely accepted.
Vrak
07-01-2004, 14:53
OMG, that site cannot be right, 17 trillion, and I'm tiny!!! I think my way is more realistic...

OOC: I think you got mixed up between "billion" and "trillion"

Greenhome Gross Domestic Product
Population: 14,000,000
Civil Rights: Very Good
Economy: Strong
GDP per Capita: $12,500
GDP: $175,000,000,000
National Budget: $47,205,900,000

175 billion. Not 17 trillion.
Kanuckistan
07-01-2004, 14:56
OMG, that site cannot be right, 17 trillion, and I'm tiny!!! I think my way is more realistic...

http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation=greenhome

I tryed your nation there and got $47 billion for your budget and $175 billion for your GDP; sure you didn't typo when you tryed it?


As for me...


Kanuckistan Gross Domestic Product

Population: 2,149,000,000
Civil Rights: Below Average
Economy: Frightening
GDP per Capita: $35,000
GDP: $75,215,000,000,000
National Budget: $32,411,647,800,000
Shee City
08-01-2004, 17:28
Quick comparison:

Shee City, population 103 million
economy reasonable, civil rights very good

The GDP calculator gives a per capita figure of 7.5k
(cf 6k for Greenhome's figures, both of which seem a bit low for a reasonable economy)

This gives total GDP of 772.5 billion
(cf 618 billion using GH's calculations)

GDP calculator gives a total budget of 163 billion per annum, though it seems not to take tax rates into account.

Using GH's figures, percentage for budget should be around 20-30% - this gives around 200 billion. Using SC's actual tax rate of 45% gives about 280 billion.

To compare (real-life) with the UK, Greenhome's figures give it a very good economy with a tax rate ~25% and GDP per capita of 23.5k. This by the same calculations would give total GDP of 1410 billion, and a budget of 350 billion. This compares with actual figures for GDP per capita of 25.5k, and a budget of 565 billion.

So the numbers are a little lower than actual, but accounting for game dynamics, it seems closer than the GDP calculator, though I suppose it may be further out at the lower economy levels. I may well use it for Albia's stats, though it'll be totally irrelevant to places like Kitchen Garden.

SC
11-01-2004, 22:45
Thanks for the comments!
I didn't account tax rate directly into the equation because it doesn't necessarily factor into a nations GDP. Though it is possible to include it by going backwards, so to speak, from a nations budget to its GDP, I feel that it is more realistic to start a GDP and go to budget. However, that being said, each to his or her own system!