Nuevos números: ¿Un mundo nuevo a la vista?

Abstract

This article is a commentary on the Report of the 2005 International Comparison Program 2005, final results (published in February 2008). The report provides new estimates of the relative real incomes of 146 countries thereby painting a new economic picture of the world. The article discusses the way in which the new estimates change conceptions of the relative power of nations, the relative levels of welfare between people of different countries, the global distribution of income and the nature of the environmental problems of the world and their solution. Is this report the economic equivalent of the decoding of the human genome, or is it just another controversial source of data?