Get a feel for Qatar, the richest oil country
According to Qatar Statistics data. Qatar, a small Arab country on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, exports more oil per capita, and before the 70s of the 20th century, relying on oil exports, it has achieved national prosperity. For example, in 1970, the per capita nominal GDP reached $4,929 (equivalent to $23,037 in 2013), which is already a high level of per capita nominal GDP income, and in the same year, Japan's per capita nominal GDP was $1,964, the United Kingdom's was $2,229, and the United States' was $5,246.
With the advent of the oil crisis, Qatar's oil revenues soared, and its nominal GDP per capita also rose rapidly, reaching $10,576 in 1973, doubling in three years. Real GDP per capita grew slowly for three consecutive years, and in 1973 real GDP per capita increased by 4 compared with 197015%, reaching the highest historical peak of real GDP per capita in Qatar. Since then, Qatar's real GDP per capita has been mainly declining, and it has never reached the level of real GDP per capita in 1973, which is the biggest bright spot of Qatar's real GDP per capita, which will confuse most readers, what is going on?
Since then, with the sharp rise in oil prices brought about by the oil crisis, Qatar's per capita nominal GDP in US dollars has been maintained year by year, and the situation has been maintained until 1981, when the per capita nominal GDP reached a small peak of 36,904 US dollars (in the same year, Japan was 10,060 US dollars, the United Kingdom was 9,220 US dollars, and the United States was 13,950 US dollars), and the per capita nominal GDP was more than twice that of the first-class major developed countries. However, real GDP per capita has mainly declined (only 1976 and 1978 were not negative growth in these eight years), falling to 81 in 197018%。
After the second oil crisis, oil **gradually**, which brought about a decline in Qatar's oil revenues, which led to a decline in per capita nominal GDP year after year, which also led to a decline in per capita real GDP, of which the astonishing per capita real GDP fell by 13 in 19825% (the decline in oil revenues is supposed to be one of the reasons for the decline in real GDP, which still seems difficult to explain such a large decline), this is the largest decline in real GDP per capita in Qatar so far, with nominal GDP per capita falling by 186%。In 1986, nominal GDP per capita fell to a trough of $15,742, but it is reassuring to note that real GDP per capita rose by 01%。Real GDP per capita in 1986 was only 58 percent of what it was in 197063%, which is still not the lowest level. After some fluctuations, real GDP per capita fell to 49 in 1991, equivalent to 49 in 1970The trough level of 41%, and the per capita nominal GDP fluctuated to $15,788 in the same year. In 1994, the per capita nominal GDP fluctuated to a trough level of US$15,396, and since then the volatility has increased to US$98,986 in 2013 (US$38,468 in Japan and US$53,001 in the United States), second only to Luxembourg and twice the per capita exchange rate GDP of major first-class developed countries.
The oil situation brought about by the oil crisis is unstable and fluctuates too much. The real good situation is brought about by the continuous demand for China's oil, which allows oil to remain at a high level for a long time, which lays the foundation for Qatar's per capita exchange rate GDP to continue in the 21st century. For example, in 2001, the per capita nominal GDP was $27,024 ($32,710 in Japan, $25,135 in the United Kingdom, and $37,252 in the United States), and Qatar's per capita nominal GDP was relatively low.
The rise in Qatar's per capita nominal GDP has also led to a gradual recovery in real per capita GDP over the same period. For example, in 1996 nominal GDP per capita fluctuated to $17,763, which was about the same as the nominal GDP per capita of $15,396 in 1994, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar. Real GDP per capita in 1996 was only 50 percent of what it was in 19703%, which is still fluctuating at a low level. What is really meaningful is the turning point in 1997, when nominal GDP increased significantly to 21,317 US dollars, and per capita real GDP increased by 251%。Since then, per capita real GDP has fluctuated and increased, with both retreats and advances, and in 2004 it grew by 125%, up to 75 in 197061% (which is higher than the real GDP per capita in the previous 22 years). In the following years, it continued to fluctuate, rising and falling, and by 2013, it reached its highest peak since 1982, equivalent to 94 in 197068%。
Another bright spot in Qatar is the rapid growth of the permanent population caused by migrant workers, which increased from nearly 110,000 in 1970 to 1.91 million in 2013, with an annual growth rate of 69%。Although Qatar's GDP per capita is declining, its overall GDP purchasing power is also growing rapidly, reaching nearly 6., taking into account population growthThe economic growth rate of 7% is a booming economy. The fact that Qatar has been able to attract such a large number of immigrants also shows that Qatar has always been relatively highly affluent. The quality of life of the Qatari population is relatively high, which leads to its rapid social development, such as life expectancy, education level is high, according to specific standards, Qatar in 2010 has reached the level of developed countries, becoming the only Muslim developed country. In fact, in terms of per capita income, Qatar in 1970 had already reached the level of income of developed countries. With such a high income level, it took another 40 years of development to reach the comprehensive standards of developed countries. In non-oil-based developed countries or regions, after the per capita income reaches the level of developed countries, other standards will naturally approach or reach the level of developed countries, and the comprehensive level can naturally reach the level of developed countries or developed regions.
The changes in Qatar's real GDP per capita are astonishing and incredible, and there must be something hidden in these changes. In the 70s of the 20th century, after the affluence, the Gulf oil countries began to be arrogant, their self-consciousness expanded, their religious power increased substantially, and the constraints on women gradually increased, for example, more women returned to the family from the workplace, resulting in a gradual decline in the proportion of women's employment in the total female population, and a decrease in the proportion of the working population, which is naturally not conducive to the rise of per capita real GDP. The increase in other restrictions on women has also led to an increase in the cost of running a society. The increase in dependency ratio brought about by the increase in births is also not conducive to the increase in per capita real GDP. The strengthening of religious consciousness will also have an impact on the male working population, which may not be conducive to the improvement of male labor efficiency. After the affluence, Qatar's welfare to its own people will gradually increase, welfare is very necessary, but more welfare or higher welfare level will affect people's concept of employment, affect people's concept of labor, this factor is naturally not conducive to the improvement of social efficiency. Qatar's prosperity is based on oil exports, not on the efficiency of social operation, which means that the efficiency of its system will not be too high.
Generally speaking, the Qatari nationality population is a enjoying population, the amount of labor is small, and its economic operation mainly depends on foreign workers, which is the main difference between Qatar and other developed countries. In other developed countries, labor mainly depends on itself, and the foreign population is secondary, while the foreign population in Qatar accounts for the majority of the permanent population, responsible for the vast majority of the production labor, the Qatari registered population is mainly employed in the state sector, these Qatari registered population employed in the state sector, many people are idle, this is actually a model of welfare.
A higher nominal GDP per capita is of great significance to Qatar, as nominal GDP per capita determines the purchasing power of foreign goods per capita. The higher the nominal GDP per capita, the higher the purchasing power per capita for foreign goods. This can lead to an increase in domestic production efficiency, and can also lead to an increase in the efficiency of domestic social operations.
For some time prior to 1997, Qatar's nominal GDP per capita was stagnant, which led to its real GDP per capita being stagnant as well. In 1997, Qatar's nominal per capita GDP began to rise gradually, which also led to a gradual increase in its real GDP per capita, which almost doubled after several times the nominal GDP per capita. This shows that the growth of its nominal GDP has led to the growth of real GDP per capita, but not as much as the growth of nominal GDP. This applies to all countries, but it is more pronounced in non-oil countries.
The reason why Qatar's per capita nominal GDP growth rate is greater than the per capita real GDP growth rate also depends on some important economic principles, similar to the change in industrial demand of Engel's coefficient. People's demand for goods will change with their level of affluence, such as in the United States, where the output value of primary agriculture as a percentage of GDP has gradually declined, to a very low level, such as around 2% of GDP. The ratio of industrial output to GDP is also gradually declining, less than 20% of GDP. In the industrial output value, the manufacturing industry belongs to the international industry, the manufacturing industry accounts for less than 13% of the output value of the United States, agriculture belongs to the international industry, agriculture and manufacturing account for about 15% of the GDP of the United States, and a small part of the service industry in the United States can also be international. This means that in highly wealthy countries like the United States, the proportion of industries available for the first class accounts for about 20% of GDP, which means that among the goods consumed by the national consumers of highly rich countries, the goods available for international consumption account for about 20% of all consumer goods. For example, Qatar, a highly wealthy country, can import about 20% of the goods consumed, and its extremely high nominal GDP per capita can only affect 20% of these imported goods. However, the production efficiency of domestic goods, which account for 80% of the weight, does not change significantly with the change of nominal GDP, which naturally leads to the fact that the change in per capita real GDP is not as large as the change in per capita nominal GDP.
The most shocking thing is that Qatar's real GDP per capita has not increased since 1970, and has decreased, for example, in 2013, the real GDP per capita was only 94% of 197068%, which means that Qatar's real GDP per capita reached $104548 in 1970. At that time, the real GDP per capita of the United States was $18,268, and Qatar was 57 times. This phenomenon is due to the fact that people's consumption tends to be rational or mature, or they adapt to their sudden increase in income. In the period before 1970, Qatar's revenues increased significantly through oil exports, and at this time, the national income was spent more on foreign goods, such as cars, which showed a large real GDP per capita. Later, people gradually adapted to their high income status, spending became more rational, and the degree of frenzied consumption gradually declined, although the per capita income did not change much, that is, the per capita nominal GDP did not change much, but the real GDP per capita showed a significant decline. This should be the reason why Qatar's per capita real GDP has stagnated or even regressed, which is an inevitable adjustment to Qatar's ultra-high per capita real GDP. This is similar to the impact of a family buying a lottery lottery jackpot, just after winning the jackpot, a large number of purchases of goods (buildings, etc.), showing a very high level of consumption, with the continuation of time, family consumption will gradually tend to be reasonable or rational, the average consumption level will be significantly lower than the beginning stage.
In 2013, Qatar's real GDP per capita was $145894, the world's first, 275 times. Qatar's per capita nominal GDP in 2013 was US$98,986, and its real GDP was significantly larger than its nominal GDP, which is not in line with the general situation that the nominal GDP of the US dollar is greater than its own real GDP in first-class rich countries, and is a special case. There must be some truth to this difference in Qatar.
The degree of social freedom in Qatar is not high, but the degree of economic international freedom in some areas of Qatar is very high, which is the root cause of the large ratio of real GDP per capita to nominal GDP per capita in Qatar. We know that the United States has a high degree of economic freedom, for example, it is very convenient to import and export industrial and agricultural products or some service products, but in some economic fields, the United States is also very unfree, for example, it is difficult to export direct international labor services in the United States, which is mainly in the American nationality system, and you can be a U.S. citizen if you are born in the United States, which makes it difficult for the United States to accept foreign legal workers. The strong immigration attraction of the United States has also caused the United States to dare not absorb legal labor, and the American Labor Organization is also firmly opposed to the admission of foreign workers. We have heard of Chinese companies building buildings and roads in the Middle East, Africa and other places, but we seem to have never heard of projects with low technical content such as building buildings and roads in the United States. As early as more than 100 years ago, Chinese participated in the construction of railroads in the United States, and some of these people who went to the United States to build roads became the earliest immigrants from China in the United States.
One can imagine what a spectacular scenario it would have been if the United States had allowed the use of foreign labor for American infrastructure. All sorts of people will rush to fight for this kind of recruitment, and most of these legal workers who go to the United States will gradually become American citizens. Of course, this phenomenon will not happen, but all kinds of illegal stay in the United States are emerging one after another, and a large number of Chinese people are smuggled into the United States every year, which is insignificant compared to the scale of Mexico's smuggling into the United States. Smugglers from all over the world have led to tens of millions of illegal workers in the United States, and these illegal workers do the work that Americans are unwilling to do and take wages that Americans are unwilling to take, which objectively promotes a significant increase in the amount of labor paid by the United States, and the fruits of labor naturally increase, which is the root cause of the relatively high per capita real GDP of the United States. This may explain why developed countries with nominal GDP similar to those of the United States have significantly smaller real GDP per capita.
Through the above analysis of the reasons for the high per capita real GDP of the United States, it is now necessary to know why Qatar's per capita real GDP is higher! Qatar's more liberal international** policies in certain areas of the economy have contributed to Qatar's high real GDP per capita. Qatar allows legal migrant workers, which leads to Qatari migrant workers accounting for the majority of Qatar's permanent population, resulting in a relatively young age structure in Qatar, and a large proportion of the labor force, and the ** of various service products is not particularly high, which has led to Qatar achieving a very high real GDP per capita. These migrant workers do not enjoy the main benefits of their own household registration population, and they can pay more labor with relatively low wages, which greatly reduces the relative quality of service industry products, and how can the per capita real GDP be not high?
We know that when a country becomes richer, the per capita labor effort decreases. When the country is rich, in fact, the people are rich, and when the people are rich, everyone will have more financial resources to buy leisure, and the labor will naturally be reduced. In oil-exporting countries such as Qatar, migrant workers do not enjoy national treatment, and their affluence is naturally not high, and their labor contributions are naturally higher, which will lead to prices that are not particularly high, and the real GDP per capita will naturally appear to be higher.
In the same way, if the developed countries of Europe and the United States also absorb a large number of foreign workers with low human rights treatment like the rich oil-exporting countries, their price levels will drop significantly, for example, the cost of building buildings and sewers will drop significantly, and so on, which will have a significant impact in many fields, and the real GDP per capita will naturally rise significantly. There is no doubt that these developed countries in Europe and the United States will not allow low-human rights population groups to appear in their own countries, because they do not conform to their own concept of equality for all, nor do they conform to some other concepts, they are either equal to themselves or are not allowed to exist, and as a result, they choose not to allow their existence. In fact, this also shows a basic truth: if you are willing to accept migrant workers, then you must have the courage to give them low human rights treatment. For example, of course, political rights are gone, and of course a part of national welfare is not required, and there are many other restrictions on rights, and the specific restriction policy can refer to Qatar's measures.
From an economic point of view, allowing legal migrant workers with low human rights is a win-win situation in the economic field, which can not only significantly increase the real GDP of the receiving country, but also benefit the foreign worker or the foreign worker sending country. According to the situation in Qatar, if developed countries follow Xi the example of Qatar and allow legal migrant workers with low human rights treatment, the per capita real GDP can be doubled under the current level of science and technology. Developing countries can also export hundreds of millions of laborers, benefiting trillions of dollars a year.
Qatar's fertility rate in 2014 was 192, this fertility rate has fallen to the level of sustainable population development, close to the level of the United States, you must know that this is an Arab country! This shows that even the Arab countries are almost equally aware of the inverse relationship between population growth and real GDP per capita. We must be clear that this law is relatively weak among Arab countries, and the reason why Qatar abides by this law more than other Arab countries is mainly due to the fact that the comprehensive level of social development in Qatar has reached the level of developed countries, for example, the level of education and urbanization are relatively high.