Data Management and Visualization: WEEK 1

Selecting a research question

Life Quality in developed countries

After looking through the codebook for the GapMinder study, I have decided that I am particularly interested in World´s economic situation. I will focus on the GDP across the continents (mostly Europe) and I´ll try to find other variables which might appear relevant (i.e. the costs of living, salaries).

My specific topic of interest: Life Quality in Europe and a few non-European countries

I´m about to investigate how much the well-being of a country is connected to the well-being of its citizens?!

Hypothesis: Countries with stable economy, positive GDP and reasonable costs of living have citizens with better life quality.

The second topic I´m interested in is the Oil and Electricity Consumption and how it affects countries GDP. For that reason, I´ll use incomeperperson, oilperperson and relectricperperson variables in GapMinder.

Literature review:
Additionally to the data I´m given, I´ll use existing reasearches and literature concerning World´s Economy and Financial Situation of citizens. The search terms used are GDP, costs of living, salaries, consumption, material living conditions and citizen satisfaction across Europe. The selected publications (listed below) are in English and Polish language and they are based on up-to-date statistics prepared by leading economists.

References:

• OECD (2015) How´s Life? 2015: Measuring Well-being, OECD Publishing, Paris.
• UN (2016) World Economic Situation and Prospects 2016, UN publication, New York.
• EU (2014) : Living conditions in Europe, Publications Office of the EU, Luxembourg

• http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mic/overview
• http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/
• http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php
• http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail
• http://stat.gov.pl/
• http://europa.eu/publications/statistics/index_pl.htm
• http://forsal.pl/artykuly/915840,polska-gospodarka-prognozy-2016-pkb-infacja-stopa-bezrobocia-waluty.html
• http://biznes.pl/kraj/prognozy-oecd-3-4-proc-wzrost-pkb-w-2016-r/dl38gr
• http://www.money.pl/gospodarka/unia-europejska/statystyka/pkb/
• http://www.imf.org/external/research/index.aspx

• http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries.jsp
• http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp
• https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living
• http://nf.pl/kariera/zarobki-a-koszty-zycia-w-europie,,48206,197
• http://wynagrodzenia.pl/artykul.php/wpis.2931
• https://ec.europa.eu/eures/main.jsp?catId=4834&acro=living&lang=pl&parentId=4780&countryId=PL&living=
• http://www.hrtrendy.pl/2012/12/10/koszty-zycia-i-zarobki-w-europie-gdzie-zyje-sie-najlepiej/
• http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_production,_consumption_and_market_overview
• http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices
• http://www.focus-economics.com/regions/euro-area
• http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Quality_of_life_in_Europe_-_facts_and_views_-_overall_life_satisfaction~
• http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Quality_of_life_indicators_-_material_living_conditions
• http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

The above references provide important data and its interpretation concerning following variables:

GDP, costs of living, salaries, life quality, life satisfaction, electricity and oil consumption.

Patterns observed:

The forecasts for 2016 show that countries with highest rise in GDP in Europe are going to be:

Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Ireland and Latvia. 

Countries with the most competitive and stable economies in Europe are: Switzerland, Germany, Netherland, Sweden, Finland and United Kingdom.

Researches concerning life conditions show that in last few years (from 2008 ) the material living conditions of citizens were slightly rising in most European countries. The top 3 countries with highest material life quality were Luxemburg, Norway and Switzerland.

Overall life satisfaction has been the highest in Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria.