income per head

income per head

see PER CAPITA INCOME.

Collins Dictionary of Business, 3rd ed. © 2002, 2005 C Pass, B Lowes, A Pendleton, L Chadwick, D O’Reilly and M Afferson

Fig. 89 Income per head. GNP, total and per capita, for selected countries. Source: World Development Report, World Bank, 2004.

income per head

or

per capita income

the GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP) of a country divided by its POPULATION. Income per head gives a more general indication of a country's monetary STANDARD OF LIVING than its absolute level of GNP: as Fig. 89 shows, although the USA has a much higher absolute level of GNP than Japan, its income per head is only slightly higher. However, an income per head measure of people's standard of living is itself also flawed as an indicator of typical living standards because, in practice, the distribution of income is not equal and non-monetary elements of lifestyle quality differ as between different people. See PERSONAL DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME.

Collins Dictionary of Economics, 4th ed. © C. Pass, B. Lowes, L. Davies 2005