Note: this article is an excerpt from a full report published on Medium, visible here. If you like this article, or to understand the context of the model, I suggest consulting the complete text!
The GDP deflator is perhaps the most conventional metric used to measure prosperity and economic strength. It does not strongly correlate with the raw index scores. This could be because developed economies tend to grow at a slower pace than emerging economies, meaning that growth matters little in determining overall socioeconomic strength. However, it must be assumed that growth at some point throughout the socioeconomic progression of a country is imperative.
Modern nation-states are built upon wealth: the wealthier a country is, generally, the better it can serve its people and exert its desires upon the world. Growth, however, is not the same at wealth — in this manner, old wealth can produce heavily modernized countries with strong socioeconomic complexes, yet these countries may not top the chart of any GDP growth ranking (this is not to say the opposite; given their stability, they beat out many emerging economies ridden by events such as war that destroy intermittent periods of high GDP growth); simply put, they don’t need to grow as fast to maintain their quality of life.