Quality of Life, Balance of Power, and Nuclear Weapons, 2011: A Statesman's and Citizen's Statistical Yearbook

Aleksandr Vladimirovich Avakov

Jan 2011 · Algora Publishing

About this ebook

Who has the most nuclear assets in the Middle East? Whose power is waning, whose increasing? Economic, demographic and military indicators establish the pecking order for 232 countries analyzed in this yearbook, with estimates of all nuclear arsenals including rarely published data on non-signatory nations. The numbers are derived from objective sources to the extent possible, and are pesented in clear tabular formats. The foundations of power politics in the nuclear age, fundamental forces that drive events in the international news, and seldom-discussed factors that can shift whole economies, or trigger wars, may be discerned from the statistical tables presented in this novel yearbook. This statistical annual presents fundamental data in three sections: (1) Quality of Life, (2) Balance of Power, and (3) Developed Market Economies since 1960.It contains data that is generally not available elsewhere. Sections 1 and 2 give statistics for 232 countries. The World Bank and Encyclopedia Britannica provide statistical data for a maximum of about 160 countries. The CIA World Factbook gives limited and imprecise data for about 230 countries. The author has managed to increase the number of countries tallied by writing proprietary software utilizing statistical regressions, selecting data which, first of all, is important and, second, which allows for high correlation coefficients for these regressions. Section 2 includes data about nuclear delivery systems and the number of nuclear warheads of all nuclear powers. This is based on information from reputable sources. Among others, it includes estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal which usually do not appear in the press. Official estimates of Russian military expenditures distributed by US and British intelligence communities claim to give a picture of military expenditures of the countries of the world at market exchange rates; at the same time, they apparently cite Russian military expense figures at purchasing power parities, thus inflating these numbers in comparison to those of other countries. Such deceptive practices of the Anglo-American intelligence services are counter-balanced by presenting two different tables, showing military expenditures estimates both at market exchange rates and by purchasing power parities. Section 3 gives data on the topic of health care. It seems that public health expenditures as a share of total health expenditures has a stronger correlation with the comparative level (and the rates of improvement) of the main health care indicators than the absolute level (measured as a percent of GDP) of total health expenditures. The data demonstrates that the US has the lowest public health expenditure of developed market economies and is increasingly lagging behind other countries by main health care indicators. The recent legislation that was intended to provide greater access to health care for people in the US was furiously attacked by opponents who suspected it would entail some sort of tax increase that would hurt the economy. Surprisingly enough, the empirical data for developed market economies does not seem to support the popular idea that low taxes are strongly correlated with higher rates of growth; thus the data sheds light on modern ideological debates about the share of taxation in GDP and its influence on rates of growth. This volume is streamlined from 2008 and updated for 2011.