Category Archives: Argentina

Things Each Country Leads the World In

Each country leads the world in different things, from good to bad things to awkward ones.

According to the map above, France leads the world in tourism, India in making movies, Saudi Arabia in oil reserves, the United States in producing Nobel laureates, Greece in olive oil consumption, Switzerland in the rate of employment, Norway in democracy, Brazil in FIFA world cup titles, and Costa Rica in happiness, to name a few.

Other countries lead in not so positive things. For example, Russia leads in the number of nuclear warheads, China in carbon emissions, Afghanistan in opium production, North Korea in censorship, and Yemen in gender inequality.

Among the awkward we find Venezuela leading in the number of miss universe titles, Argentina in exporting soccer players, Netherlands in the tallest people, Iran in the highest brain drain, Sweden in atheism, and Mexico in lightning strikes.

Source: Policy Mic: This Map Shows the Weird Things Each Country Leads the World In

The Gender Gap in Science by Country

The number of women researchers is small compared to that of men globally. Researchers are professionals who are engaged in the creation of new knowledge, technologies, or products.

The map above shows the number of women as a share of total researchers by country. It is interesting to note that countries like Bolivia and Burma, both developing nations, show the highest ratio of female researchers compared to the total in each country. Since the data used here is based on headcounts of people employed in R&D full time and part time, I would take this results with caution considering that the total number of researches in these countries could be very low to begin with, and the results, therefore, not very solid.

In the same manner, the percentage of women researchers for Latin America and the Caribbean as a share of the total is the highest in the world, higher than the number for developed nations (45.2% according to this study) which seems counter-intuitive.

Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics: Women in Science – The Gender Gap in Science

Freedom on the Net 2013

Freedom House has conducted a study on internet freedom in 60 countries across the globe.

What the authors of the study found is that global internet freedom has deteriorated in the last three years as a consequence of the increase of laws and regulations that try to limit free speech on the web.

An estimated 34 countries have seen a decline in internet freedom since 2012 including Vietnam, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Venezuela. On the other hand, 16 countries have seen an improvement in internet freedom, among them Morocco, Burma, and Tunisia. Despite those improvements, limits on internet freedom are still rampant in many countries that make the list, where censorship, threats, and murder of bloggers and users who post information governments see as a threat continues.

Source: Freedom House: Freedom on the Net 2013

Most Visited Website per Country

Google, Facebook, and Chinese search engine Baidu are the top three most visited websites in the world.

Using freely available website traffic statistics from Alexa, the authors of the map above found that most people in North America, Europe, South East Asia, and Oceania prefer Google. Due to the large number of Internet users in China and South Korea combined, an estimated one billion users, Baidu is the most visited website behind Google. Facebook comes in third with an estimated 280 million users spread from Latin America to the Middle East.

Source: Information Geographies: Age of Internet Empires

The Economic Freedom Index 2013

The Economic Freedom Index, compiled by the Heritage Foundation, is a measure of the economic freedom given to citizens in each of the 185 countries where it is measured. A total of ten components of economic freedom are considered, all grouped under four categories: rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets.

The highest ranking country in the list is Hong Kong, with a score of 89.3, affording its citizens the highest degree of economic freedom in the world. Hong Kong is followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius, Denmark, and the United States, among the top ten.

On the opposite side, the most repressed countries in terms of economic freedom include North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Eritrea, and Burma.

Source: International Business Times: US Economic Freedom Is At Lowest Point Since 2000 [MAP]

Minutes of Minimum-Wage Work to Buy a Big Mac Burger

Using the criteria of the Big Mac Index developed by The Economist in 1986 as a way to measure if currencies are valued at the right level, the International Business Times created this visualization showing how many minutes a minimum-wage worker needs to work in order to buy a Big Mac burger.

As it turns out, a minimum-wage worker in Afghanistan needs to work 372 minutes (6.2 hours) in order to buy a Big Mac burger. In contrast, a minimum-wage worker in Australia needs to work only 18 minutes to buy a Big Mac burger.

Source: International Business Times: Minutes Of Minimum-Wage Work To Buy A Big Mac: 36 minutes in the US, 6 hours in Afghanistan

The Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Countries

Using data from the Harvard Institute for Economic Research, The Washington Post created this map that shows how ethnically diverse is a country.

Dark green countries are the more ethnically diverse. Such is the case of Canada, Mexico, several South American countries, including Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The most ethnically diverse countries are located in Africa. In contrast, dark orange countries are more ethnically homogenous. That is the case of most European nations, China, Japan, South and North Korea, and Australia.

Bribes Around the World

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 was enacted for the purpose of making it illegal for individuals or entities to make payments to foreign government officials in order to obtain business in a particular country. So far about 200 FCPA violations have been covered in 80 countries.

The darker the color of a country on the map above, the larger the FCPA violations in that country. FCPA violations have been found in different economic sectors: energy, manufacturing, agriculture, consulting, health and pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, defense and aerospace, and infrastructure.

The country with the largest number of FCPA violations is Nigeria, with the majority of bribery cases in the energy sector. Nigeria is followed by Argentina, China, Russia, Iran, and Iraq.

For the interactive map and links to documentation for every FCPA violation, please visit: The Mintz Group: Where the Bribes Are – Penalties in U.S. Government FCPA Cases Since 1977

Oil Production and Consumption by Country

When it comes to oil production and consumption, countries have a very close relationship of interdependence with each other. Some countries consume more oil than what they produce relying on imports to satisfy their internal demand. Others, consume less than what they produce, being able to export oil to nations that need it.

Oil consumption (yellow) for the United States, for example, was larger than its production (grey) for 2012, 18.55 mb/d (million barrels per day) compared to 8.9 mb/d, importing more than double its production to satisfy the gap in internal demand. Other nations with oil consumption higher that oil production include China, Brazil, Australia, India, UK, and Indonesia.

In contrast, oil consumption for Saudi Arabia for 2012 is estimated at 2.94 mb/d, while its production reached 11.53 md/d, exporting its oil surplus to the rest of the world. Other nations whose oil production exceeds its oil consumption include Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Norway, Russia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Source: Winston Smith Labs: Global Oil Production and Consumption since 1965 [Interactive Map/Graph]

Violence Against Women by World Region

In this chart published by The Economist we look at two sets of data about violence against women.

The first one shows that more than a third (39%) of homicides of women around the world are committed by a previous or current partner. The numbers are specially shocking for South East Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar [Burma], Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore). The numbers are also high for Latin American and African countries.

The second set of data shows that 30% of women around the world have experienced physical or sexual violence during their lifetime by a former or current partner. The numbers are the highest for Central African countries (Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda), followed by countries in West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, etc.), South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), the Andean region of South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia), the Middle East, and North Africa.

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