After 1990, Poland and Romania rose in global income rankings
Before that, Poland slipped and Romania stayed flat when measured against every other country each year.
The Daily Signal · Capitalism Improves Human Lives, Socialism Does the OppositeAccording to the authors of an analysis arguing that capitalism improves lives, Poland fell in the world's income standings before 1990 and Romania stayed flat. After both moved toward more capitalist economies in 1990, following the end of Soviet rule, the authors say Poland rose dramatically and Romania rose significantly.
The yardstick is income per person, or GDP per capita, ranked as a percentile among all countries in the world in each year. A rank of 100 means a country has the highest income per person in the world that year. The figures come from the Maddison Project Database 2020 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
No exact before-and-after ranks are given, so the size of each move cannot be checked from the numbers given. The authors interpret the rise as a significant improvement in economic well-being for tens of millions of people in Eastern Europe after what they call "capitalist economy-friendly reforms."
Questions people ask
What exactly is GDP per capita?
It means average economic output per person, calculated as a country's gross domestic product divided by its population. It is widely used as a rough gauge of average material living standards, though it does not show how income is shared within a country.
Why rank countries by percentile instead of just using dollars?
Dollar amounts rise over time with inflation and global growth, so a percentile shows where a country stands relative to everyone else in that year. That makes it easier to see whether a country is catching up or falling behind, rather than just getting richer in nominal terms.
What does the piece mean by a more capitalist economy?
In this analysis, it means more private ownership, protected private property, and stronger incentives to work and innovate, after the end of Soviet-era state ownership and control.