World Development Indicators

Abstract

Providing a picture of the global economy and the economic activity of more than 200 countries and territories, including measures of macroeconomic performance and stability as well as broader measures of income and savings adjusted for pollution, depreciation, and resource depletion. The world economy grew 2.6 percent in 2014 to reach $77 trillion in current prices, and growth should accelerate to 3 percent in 2015. Developing economies grew an estimated 4.4 percent in 2014 and should grow 4.8 percent in 2015. Adjusted net savings measures the change in a country’s real wealth, including manufactured, natural, and human capital. Years of negative adjusted net savings suggest that a country’s economy rests on an unsustainable path. This year the methodology has been adjusted to improve accounting of the economic costs of air pollution, with pollution damages now calculated as productivity losses in the workforce due to premature death and illness.