Go to the St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED database, and pull data on a common measure of standard of living, real GDP per capita, in 2011 U.S. dollars. Choose the following countries: United States (USARGDPC), Japan (JPNRGDPC), United Kingdom (GBRRGDPC), and South Korea (KORRGDPC). Download the data since 1990 into an Excel spreadsheet. For your last country, choose China. For China, real GDP per capita will have to be constructed by using nominal GDP per capita and a measure of prices. To do this, download nominal GDP per capita for China (PCAGDPCNA646NWDB) and a measure of the price level in China (CHNCPIALLAINMEI). Once the Chinese data are downloaded onto a spreadsheet, create a column for real GDP per capita, which will be nominal GDP per capita divided by the price level; then multiply by 100.

Place all of the data for the five countries in a single spreadsheet, and then create one graph showing all five series, from 1990 until the present day.

a) Which country among these five currently has the highest standard of living? Which has the lowest?

b) How has South Korea’s standard of living changed in comparison to that of Japan and the United Kingdom over this time period?

c) How has China’s standard of living changed in comparison with the standard of living in the other countries since 1990?