NationStates Jolt Archive

I'd love to see an "income-range" calculator, based on the GDP calculator and states' levels of "social justice." This calculator would have a number of income distribution curves based on "social justice" levels (from everybody bunched up in the middle with almost no "tails" on the bell-curve--high social justice--to most people bunched up at the bottom with a long "tail" into the upper income ranges--low social justice) and use this in combination with the GDP to tell you what, for example, the average income is among each decile of your population. But I'm not sure this is technically feasible, since I don't know whether NationStates exposes "social justice" levels.

Looked through this at all:

http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=81908

It's very cool, but it doesn't seem to do what I'm talking about.

It uses the GDP calculator to tell you your country's GDP per capita, but it doesn't tell you anything about income *distribution*. I'd like something that did something like this:

GDP per capita: $25000
Averages for:
Top quintile $75000
Second quintile $25000
Middle quintile $15000
Fourth quintile $8000
Bottom quintile $2000

This might be for a farly wealthy country with a fairly big rich-poor divide. A poorer but more equitable country might be something like:

GDP per capita: $10000
Averages for:
Top quintile: $12000
Second quintile: $11000
Middle quintile: $10000
Fourth quintile: $9000
Bottom quintile: $8000

The GDP per capita is much lower, but the poorest quintile is doing much better.

Please expalin further, sounds interesting.

The GDP calc caps at $35,000 anyway. I think my government is stealing money from my citizens. :shock:


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The problem you have with that idea, interesting though it is, is that the data is simply not available. The GDP calc works using the XLM nation data feed, whereas the information used to make up the UN rankings, the information you would need to do calculations based on levels of social equality is stored in the database and therefore inaccessible. The only thing I could think of doing would be to search the national description for passages referring to social equality and welfare, but I doubt anybody would be masochistic enough to commit themselves to programming that.

Thanks, Clevedon. It sounds like this is not feasible unless NationStates makes "social justice" available in the XML. (I assume the game tracks it...what else do "social justice" resolutions improve?)

Ackbar, the idea is that GDP/capita is not, for many of us, a good way to judge how our nation is doing economically in a way that matters to us. A country with a few extremely rich people can have a very high GDP/capita, even if most of its population is starving. A calculator like the one I'm talking about would tell you how people from different parts of your class system are doing.

That might be of help to some of us socialist and semi-socialist nations, who generally have lower GDP/capita, and often were *willing* to lower our GDP to bolster the position of the poorest members in our society. Ultra-capitalist countries can brag about their "frightening" economies, and it would be nice for us to be able to brag back that, while our economy may not be nearly as good on average, at least we have no starving people.

Ackbar, the idea is that GDP/capita is not, for many of us, a good way to judge how our nation is doing economically in a way that matters to us. A country with a few extremely rich people can have a very high GDP/capita, even if most of its population is starving. A calculator like the one I'm talking about would tell you how people from different parts of your class system are doing.

That might be of help to some of us socialist and semi-socialist nations, who generally have lower GDP/capita, and often were *willing* to lower our GDP to bolster the position of the poorest members in our society. Ultra-capitalist countries can brag about their "frightening" economies, and it would be nice for us to be able to brag back that, while our economy may not be nearly as good on average, at least we have no starving people.

Thanks for the explanation. Sounds very interesting.