rich-countries

Within just a few years, the Internet could capture 5% of America's retail market, with other rich countries likely to follow in its wake.

Just how much governments of rich countries should borrow and spend to boost their economies is disputed.

Prior to the crisis the general consensus was that rich countries could safely have public debts worth 60% of GDP.

America and Britain are reckoned to have among the greatest inequality, among rich countries, as measured by the Gini coefficient.

In essence, they might be more willing to open their markets to rich countries if doing so did not simultaneously let in more Chinese goods.

After all, this was one of the few rich countries that skipped the global house-price boom.

But as a whole, rich countries aren't much happier than poor ones, at least among countries with enough income to meet basic needs.

Or it can be defaulted on. In practice, rich countries seem to be using different combinations of these approaches.

The year 2008 may go down in history as the one in which rich countries discovered that this applies to macroeconomic policies, too.

Perhaps, by holding out on cuts until the last minute, Latin American countries will get more concessions from rich countries.

The idea seems to be that rich countries should bear a disproportionate cost of protective actions that benefit all.

Rich countries have never been receptive to its criticisms of their policies or responsive to its suggestions.

He said rich countries like the United States needed to play their part too by saving, investing and exporting more.

The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week.

Next week, African leaders will consider plans to ask rich countries for $67bn a year from 2020.

Every new acronym I hear turns out to be another dirty trick designed to allow rich countries to go on with business as usual.

Rich countries had become used to unlimited access to cheap raw materials: prices had been falling for a century or more.

Rich countries have found that the bigger developing nations are no longer prepared to be pushed around.

IN 2000 the OECD, a group of mostly rich countries, decided to find out how much children were learning at school.

And regardless of the law, social changes seem to be making parents in rich countries cautious about smacking.

Interest rates are at 1% or below in most rich countries, and there seems to be little prospect of their rising soon.

It seems an irony that you have to drive around one of the oil rich countries of the world trying to find petrol.

Without these skilled people, Canada would not be able to compete with other rich countries like America, Japan, Germany and France.

In much of the developing world such a balance is still a Utopian vision, and even in rich countries many women still get a raw deal.

This past weekend, there has been a conference in Qatar called to ensure rich countries live up to the promises they made three years ago.

However, there has hardly been a year since 1957 in which birth rate have not fallen in the Untied States and other rich countries.

Australia was one of the few rich countries to weather the global downturn without slipping into recession in 2009.

Free press is not a luxury for just rich countries. It is at the heart of equitable development.

But Iraqis are taking to the streets to ask why millions are living in poverty in one of the most oil-rich countries in the world.

Yet workers' share of the cake in rich countries is now the smallest it has been for at least three decades (see chart 5).

Vaccines used to be seen as low-technology, commodity products that fetched low margins in rich countries and none at all in poor ones.

As in other rich countries, children find it too easy to sit indoors, staring at screens and overeating.

Rich countries are at the beginning of a demographic crisis, with birth rates starting to fall below replacement levels.

Since there are only a few representatives from some countries, may as well limit the scale of the rich countries' delegations.

Among rich countries, France has lived up to its name as a hotbed of militancy.

Some point out, for instance, that it would help big, rich countries that have better access to the technology.

Consumer pressure, transmitted from rich countries to the Amazon via green NGOs, is beginning to have an effect.

Most sales take place in rich countries, but emerging-market firms have begun to join in.

With cash on deposit yielding not much more than zero in many rich countries, there has been a powerful rally in most financial markets.

Motorists' thirst for fuel does indeed seem to be faltering in rich countries.

Clearly, rich countries must seek to reduce pressures on the Earth: cut their ecological footprints, especially that of fossil fuels.

Rich countries, trying to taper off their various stimulus packages, remain cool on the issue.

Rich countries should ensure poor states have access to the money and technology needed to move to that clean energy economy, he said.

And there is no doubt that rich countries will finance some foreign emissions reductions.

In other rich countries it would not matter if some operators blocked some sites: consumers could switch to a rival provider.

In rich countries the prospect of the general population succumbing to AIDS is now almost nil.

The private sector in many rich countries has continued to grow at a fairly good clip in recent months.

Rich countries are sufficiently close for companies to be able to adopt these technologies by themselves.

At least in rich countries, that future is likely to be realised, as Keynes predicted, by about 2030.

He said current benchmarks set by rich countries for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient.

The rich are generally happier than the poor, but rich countries do not get happier as they get richer.

It may take a few decades for rich countries to integrate newcomers, but history suggests that it will happen before too long.

Interest rates in many rich countries are now close to zero, which may increase the potency of, as well as the need for, fiscal stimulus.

China is starting to create more jobs in 'land-rich' countries (like the US) in the form of fruit-pickers.

In almost all rich countries, the best-educated women are more likely to work than their less-educated sisters. Not in South Korea.

The rich countries also seem to underestimate the risks that fiscal austerity poses to domestic demand.

In rich countries, packaging and handling has vastly reduced this sort of waste.

The Bank estimates that 40% of the world's labor force, including workers in rich countries, is covered by a pension scheme.

A feeling of universal brotherhood has not been enough to persuade rich countries to limit theirs.

Canada is one of several rich countries where the public sector is seen by voters as ripe for change after a decade of benign treatment.

The OECD wants to convert itself from a rich countries' club into a "globalisation hub" , gradually absorbing more countries.

A year ago, only a handful of rich countries had factory-gate inflation of more than 4%.

But to the press outside, rich countries continued to push the message that "the G77 is blocking negotiations" .

Fukuda said many rich countries like the U. S. have their own smallpox vaccine stockpiles.

That would be on top of the money that rich countries would spend to curb their own emissions.

Some analysts said the $30 billion pledged appeared mainly to restate previous offers from rich countries.

For the moment, the struggle is to stop some rich countries giving less.

Although I do agree with the principle that protectionism (in rich countries at least) is not the answer.

Since 2004, China has concluded similar deals in at least seven resource-rich countries in Africa, for a total of nearly $14 billion.

These promises embodied the claim that rich countries are pushing for a second Green revolution and are determined to combat global hunger.

The rich countries want a lot more out of them in terms of trade and investment liberalization.

By late 2010 output and employment had turned up in most rich countries but not enough to regain pre-crisis levels (chart 3).

Given enough time, the rich countries should be able to adjust to higher prices.

Most rich countries were once poor and war-ravaged, but they eventually grew out of it.

Postponing marriage and childbirth is part of a bigger change in the lives of many women in rich countries.

Residents of Soweto, or other urban areas in South Africa, are likely to grumble about foreigners in the same way as in rich countries.

The MSCI developed-world index, which tracks stocks in 23 rich countries, has lost more than half its value since the beginning of 2008.

It is the result of cyclical economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries' borders.

The faster the money went round, the larger the financial sector loomed in the rich countries' economies.

These services lack the sophistication of those designed for smartphones in rich countries but can be ingenious in their simplicity.

Even after the recession ends few rich countries will be running budgets tight enough to stop their debt from rising further.

In rich countries, workfare is meant to stop people living off the state rather than finding gainful employment.

On the face of it, the obesity epidemic in rich countries presents exactly the opposite problem.

Most rich countries, including many in the euro zone, have seen their bond yields fall since the start of the year (see chart).

Rich countries could also increase fuel supplies by removing tariffs on imported ethanol, the company argues.

Rich countries waste about the same amount of food as poor ones, up to half of what is produced, but in quite different ways.

With stingier unemployment benefits and a lower federal tax take, America has fewer "automatic stabilisers" than other rich countries do.

China wants to develop better ties with oil rich countries in the region as it hunts for new supplies of energy to fuel its booming economy.

Rich countries also seem to be more hamstrung than China.

The rich countries cannot productively absorb the flow of capital that used to flow from poor ones.

Italy is deemed by international watchdogs to be one of the most heavily regulated of all rich countries.

Many poor people are drawn to somewhat less poor countries in the hope of finding work, just as they are to rich countries.

Unlike other rich countries, America lacks the "automatic stabilisers" that kick in during times of recession to help boost demand.

Tens of millions of the rich countries of the elite circle for commercial elite of high-quality way of life recommended by a unique circle.

Britain's economy is one of the most open among the big rich countries (see chart 1).

Poor countries fear the fund and choose to suppress its conclusions; middling countries quarrel with it; rich countries ignore it.

In most rich countries the detailed plans for fiscal austerity contrast sharply with a lamentable lack of microeconomic ambition.

In rich countries, bankruptcy proceedings take less than two years on average.

I get to live like the rich mzungus (white people) who come here from rich countries, staying in the best hotels and just having my fun.

Rich countries use less than half as much oil as they did in 1970 for each inflation-adjusted dollar of GDP.

Any self-respecting bank bull likes to whip out a chart comparing the ratio of bank loans with GDP in poor and rich countries.

rich countries could exert economic pressure on states that do not adopt measures to fight online criminals.

And investors today have more reason to be worried about rich countries' fiscal positions than those of emerging markets.

Such innovation is most likely to come out of the laboratories of rich countries.

As in rich countries, the state's role in many poor ones has increased as a result of the recent global meltdown.

Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career.

He likes to point out that having a strong base in both developing and rich countries gives his company a balanced portfolio.

Unlike in rich countries, much of the waste in poor ones is a matter of money, not behaviour.

France's tinkering with Meccano is a part of a renewed trend of industrial intervention by governments in rich countries.

Back in the 1990s women in rich countries seemed to be heading towards a golden era.

If the concept takes off, says Mr Lissoos, village telcos might also pop up in rich countries.

Bangladesh this year put $50m into a national adaptation fund and invited rich countries to add of their plenty.

Some reckon that the debt position of many rich countries is now unsustainable.

FINANCE ministers representing the G20 group of rich countries will begin a two-day meeting in London on Friday September 4th.

To have a real bite, the system would require policy coordination by most rich countries.

Rich countries may concede the poor are harder hit and need help, but once there is a pot of money, they too will want a share.

Past emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from rich countries have taken up much of that space.

DEMOGRAPHY may not be destiny, but it matters in rich countries where ageing and shrinking populations are bringing economic problems.

Then, the share of emerging-world imports that came from rich countries had been on a steadily declining path.

Rich countries have deservedly taken much of the blame for the sorry state of the Doha round.

But he warned that while demand in China and India would be strong, consumption "growth is likely to be somewhat anaemic in" rich countries.

That will ruin the pay-as-you-go state pension schemes that provide the bulk of retirement income in rich countries.

Many young people in rich countries have no assets and a wallet full of maxed-out credit cards.

In the absence of a Doha deal, rich countries would find ways of raising barriers against these fast-growing emerging upstarts.

The biggest flow of money from rich countries to poor ones is remittances.

So when the rules governing exports to rich countries were changed at the beginning of 2005, Bangladeshis feared huge job losses.

Second, this global warming is on such a scale that it will wreak havoc on both poor and rich countries.

The Chinese say much of the stuff they make is for the West, so rich countries should shoulder those emissions as well.

The only way to avoid the worst of both worlds is for aging rich countries to share their skills and capital with young developing ones.

THE global economic crisis was accompanied by a collapse in house prices in most rich (and some not-so-rich) countries around the world.

There was also much hand-wringing about money, as governments and taxpayers in rich countries feel the pinch.

The experts also note that diseases linked to diet and a lack of exercise have spread beyond rich countries.

Unlike all other rich countries bar Australia, the United States never ratified the Kyoto protocol, and formally withdrew from it in 2001.

Most other rich countries have not been good at making use of older people willing and able to work.

The basic idea is for rich countries to pay to preserve forests in poor ones, which can be cheaper than reducing their own carbon emissions.

Rich countries' trade statistics tend to be more reliable than those of emerging economies, where data collection is less developed.

Of the important rich countries, only the Europeans, responsible for around 13% of global emissions, will consider a second go.

Their customers are less likely to use mobile or online banking than are their peers in a number of other rich countries (see chart 1).

Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America's economy has outpaced other rich countries' for a decade.

So oil shocks have smaller effects today, because labour markets in rich countries have become considerably more flexible since the 1970s.

Australia's economy had already stood out from other rich countries' by surviving the global downturn without recession.

Instead, it advocates cushioning the blow for those finding themselves in jobs that are no longer viable in rich countries.

Private-sector biotech companies in the rich countries carry out much of the leading-edge research on genetically modified crops.

But America, like other rich countries, is now caught in a "liquidity trap" .

A third might be a backlash against globalisation among people in rich countries.

Britain already devotes a far smaller proportion of its national wealth to research than many other rich countries (see chart).

The cost of higher education has contributed to plummeting birth rates among pushy parents in other rich countries, too.

In farm trade, for instance, America wants rich countries to slash barriers by an average of 66%.

Rich countries account for most of the past emissions that now fill the air, but less than half the world's current emissions.

Among rich countries Australia stands out as a place whose geography and geology pull its energy planners in different directions.

Notes and coins are already a small fraction of the money in most rich countries.

The world would be better served by policies that both improve rich countries' prospects and reorient growth in emerging economies.

Also, rich countries tend not to invest in neglected tropical diseases research because there is no market there.

Furthermore, export-led growth also looks much less attractive in an era of consumer retrenchment in the rich countries.

Many rich countries are also seeing a decline in social mobility, suggesting a growing inequality of opportunity as well as of income.

A report by Unicef in 2007 on children in rich countries found that America and Britain had some of the lowest scores for "well-being" .

So rich countries are much more concerned about access to emerging markets than they were when the goals for the Doha round were set.

If the poor countries do nothing, the rich countries argue, their own expensive efforts will be in vain.

So the greatest challenge lies with changing behaviors and institutions, particularly in rich countries.

But heightened integration with global markets through trade has exposed the region to the effects of the recession in rich countries.

To avoid Japan's fate, rich countries need to foster growth in two ways, by supporting short-term demand and by boosting long-term supply.

In other rich countries, people between 66 and 75 are no more likely to be poor than the population as a whole.

The Group of Eight rich countries' meeting in St Petersburg last weekend raised fresh hopes that the round could be completed.

After decades of deregulation in most rich countries, finance is entering a new age of reregulation.

The rich countries realize they made many errors, he says, and will be more amenable to IMF advice even if it's made privately.

Inhabitants of some rich countries are bound to feel happier.

But whether that shift takes place against a background of prosperity or stagnation depends on the pace of growth in the rich countries.

LANDFILLS in rich countries have to jump through a lot of hoops to make themselves acceptable these days.

But it has also led to rising inequality in the rich countries, and they may now well respond by raising protectionist barriers.

Rich countries build sewers, drains, dams, reservoirs, flood defences, irrigation canals and barrages to avoid such problems.

Oil rich countries, particularly those in the Persian Gulf, as eager to buy more weapons, with which to defend their assets.

The world's financial troubles may have been triggered by America's housing bust, but it is other rich countries that are hurting most.

Rich countries would acknowledge their historical role and offer substantial compensation, whether in cash or investments in new technology.

And although rich countries have curbed their energy-guzzling a little, demand continues to surge in emerging markets.

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa.

Only two of these, Austria and Sweden, are from the traditional group of rich countries.

The announcement brings the 97-year-old U. S. central bank into line with its peers from the other Group of Seven rich countries.

The best solution for rich countries is to work off their debts through economic growth.

In resource-rich countries, exploration companies are sometimes under pressure to give bribes, often in exchange for extraction rights.

Money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty.

Other rich countries, including Britain and Australia, have enjoyed sprightlier recent GDP growth and lower unemployment than America.

Sovereign-debt managers in rich countries used to focus on borrowing as cheaply as possible.

India says that it will accept only a limit on emissions per person that matches rich countries.

With regards to physical activity levels, we didnot find much of a difference between poor and rich countries.

RICH countries have democratic governments, so continued support for globalisation will depend on how prosperous the average worker feels.

It is not just an economic concern, but a political one, as oil rich countries assess their future.

The rise in oil and commodity prices has pushed up inflation in rich countries and acted like a tax on consumers.

The European move marks the first formal recognition that rich countries will need to pick up the climate change bill prior to Copenhagen.

Recession in rich countries has discouraged some would-be incomers from trying their luck.

it's also offering aid to resource-rich countries in exchange for stable, long-term supplies of energy and natural resources.

Traditional creditors (rich countries) and traditional debtors (poor countries) have switched places.

Foreign investment remained steady. Oil-rich countries such as Angola continued to boom.

If rich countries really believe in debt forgiveness, they should sell some IMF gold to pay for it.

Rich countries are not immune: Italian consumer groups organised a pasta boycott last month in a protest over prices.

Rich countries should also continue to replace food aid with development assistance that boosts agricultural productivity.

With military budgets under threat in many rich countries this is not a great time to be pushing into this industry.

Rich countries have more of the former, so specialise in traded goods with a high skill content.

For this reason countries, even rich countries try to keep reserves of foreign currencies around.

The largest market of industrial goods is in rich countries which have related lower importing tariffs.

That would be bad both for the old rich countries and the new emerging stars.

"In the last 30 years, Chinese leaders have firmly believed China is a developing country, " he says. "Davos is for rich countries. "

Even as the rating agencies busily revise rich countries' creditworthiness downwards, Indonesia's has been going the other way.

In recent years, the burden of chronic diseases has increased dramatically, and shifted dramatically, from rich countries to poorer ones.

The World Bank and many rich countries have doubled the money they put into poor countries' farming.

The trend is markedly different from most rich countries, where the winter months of January and February see peak demand.

Yields on government bonds in most rich countries are extremely low as shell-shocked investors clamour for the safety of public debt.

But this source of rising incomes is likely to diminish, leaving rich countries more reliant on achieving greater advances in efficiency.

The International Energy Agency says that full compliance with the December cuts would reduce oil stocks in rich countries rapidly.

Economic theory suggests that trade with emerging markets creates a wage premium for the skilled workers in rich countries.

It is tempting to think that some of the gaps in the rich countries' labour forces could be filled by immigrants from poorer countries.

The rich countries' problem is rigidity and the poor countries' problem is capacity.

Reserve-rich countries like China could contribute more, as Japan did with a $100 billion pledge in February.

This policy can lower customs taxes for rich countries, and is advantageous for China's economic growth.

Rich countries fear that, apart from the trouble and expense of putting pirates on trial, convictions will not deter them.

Mr Lula da Silva also called on rich countries to promise more money to help poorer countries cut their emissions.

If political pressure became strong enough, rich countries might decide to squeeze foreign labour whatever the economic price.

Both are issued by rich countries with stable banks that have not sullied the public finances.

Kamal Nath, the Indian trade minister, rails against the iniquities of subsidies and tariffs in the rich countries.

Blood donors are stalwarts of the voluntary sector, and rich countries with advanced medical systems rely on them.

To make the leap into the top league of global IT services, India's three giants may have to hire many more people in rich countries.

There is also little chance of overseas aid payments by rich countries taking up the slack left by the drop in private capital flows.

Immigration is unpopular in rich countries because people overestimate its costs and underestimate its benefits.

Signed by most rich countries, this spoke of "common but differentiated" responsibilities for cutting emissions.

With manufacturing now barely a fifth of economic activity in rich countries, the "knowledge economy" is becoming more important.

Skilled workers in rich countries benefit from trade, but the wages of the less skilled suffer from foreign competition.

The mobile-based technology provided to Rwandan health workers by Voxiva, an American firm, should make users in rich countries jealous.

They cite various reasons for the recent drop in prices, chief among them the darkening economic outlook in rich countries.

The measures are better designed than similar efforts in rich countries, says Eduardo Engel, a Chilean economist at Yale University.

So some people put forward that rich countries' aid should shift to the introduction of technology, knowledge and education.

An illegal market in shipping hazardous waste from rich countries to the developing world was continuing, the report warned.

Most rich countries are working all the time to make it easier to start new businesses.

Finally, but by no means least important, let's remember that rich countries have a vital responsibility in the fight against corruption.

India aside, the Asians entered this downturn with far healthier government finances than rich countries, allowing them to spend more money.

Moreover, the size of the overall pot in rich countries will shrink as economies contract.

Only around half of consumer spending is taxed at the standard VAT rate of 20%, a low share compared with other rich countries.

No surprise there. It is exactly what rich countries have done to the developing world for the past century.

As Cecilia Tam of the International Energy Agency, the rich countries' watchdog, puts it: "It is challenging, but feasible. "

"Do only rich countries have the right to host the Olympics? " Lula asked this week.

When it comes to climate change negotiations, rich countries receive the brunt of the criticism.

IN RICH countries, where people worry about air quality and debate ways of pricing carbon emissions, coal is deeply unfashionable.

Celso Amorim, his foreign minister, argues that condemnations by rich countries of abuses in poor ones are biased and ineffective.

Faster catch-up would narrow the wage gap between emerging and rich countries and help to relieve the downward pressure on unskilled wages.

Rich countries accept that China, India and other emerging economies will not agree to absolute cuts in their emissions in the medium term.

Workers in rich countries could accumulate claims on the wealth generated by future Brazilian, Indian and Turkish workers.

With the worst of the banking crisis now receding in most rich countries, it is tempting to send the financial firefighters home.

The costs of extreme weather, including floods, droughts and storms, are already rising, including for rich countries.

nor does it insist on showering excess savings on rich countries that have no good use for them.

The two academics compare levels of mental illness, violence, teenage pregnancy and other social problems across various rich countries.

Wong cautioned there is not an immediate return on investment for mineral rich countries, as there may be for oil-rich nations.

Emerging economies may be hit harder by a spike, since they use more oil per unit of output than rich countries do (see chart 2).