Study Note - The Development Gap – GNP per Capita

Gross National Product (GNP) per capita is often used as an indicator of development. GNP can be defined as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation together with any money that has been earned by investment abroad, minus the income earned by non-nationals within the nation.

This is then divided by the number of people living in that country, to provide a figure of GNP per capita. GNP and GDP are usually expressed in US dollars.

GNP is often called GNI (Gross National Income) by some organisations, including the World Bank, but the most recent GCSE geography specifications use the term GNP.

In the mid-1990s a basic rule of thumb for using GNP per capita to define development was that $10,000 would indicate a more developed country, while for the least developed countries the figure would be around $600. Using data from the World Bank we can see which countries would be considered the least developed and more developed in 2010:

GNP per capita is an imperfect measurement of the development of a nation because certain forms of production, such as subsistence production, are not measured.