Income level classifications

New World Bank country classifications by income level: 2020-2021

by 王神鐸 107753048

Original article: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-gdp

Reference and dataset used by article: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2020-2021

Original Article only had some simple donut charts to show GDP for different countries. I took the same data they use, GDP, and then separated it according to the 5 worldbank categories (low income, high income etc) and displayed it on a map with its respective color code, which i think is a better way to present information when we want to visualize countries. This, compared to simple donut or pie charts, shows us how wealth is distributed around the world in a better way.

The World Bank assigns the world’s economies to four income groups—low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income countries. The classifications are updated each year on July 1 and are based on GNI per capita in current USD (using the Atlas method exchange rates) of the previous year (i.e. 2019 in this case).

The classifications change for two reasons:

In each country, factors such as economic growth, inflation, exchange rates, and population growth influence GNI per capita. Revisions to national accounts methods and data can also influence GNI per capita. The updated data on GNI per capita data for 2019 can be accessed here.

To keep the income classification thresholds fixed in real terms, they are adjusted annually for inflation. The Special Drawing Rights (SDR) deflator is used which is a weighted average of the GDP deflators of China, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Euro Area. This year, the thresholds have moved up in line with this inflation measure. The new thresholds (to be compared with GNI per capita in current USD, Atlas method) are as follows.