How to Understand What Makes a Country Rich or Poor

School project? Or do you just want to increase your general knowledge? Whatever the reason, this article will help you to understand what makes a country rich or poor!

Steps
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1
Research the sources of a country's wealth, including its naturally-occurring resources, for example:

"Coffee can be produced only under certain climatic conditions. It is grown mainly in Brazil, partly in Central America, to a much lesser degree in Africa (Abyssinia, British Central Africa, German East Africa), and in Asia (Dutch India, British India, Arabia, Malacca). Cocoa can be produced only in tropical countries. Rubber, a product playing a very large part in modern production, also requires certain climatic conditions, and its production is limited to a few countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Guiana, etc.).

Cotton, a product occupying the first rank among all fibrous plants due to its importance in economic life is produced in the United States, India, Egypt, China, Asia Minor, and the Russian Central Asia territories. Jute, which takes the second place, is exported from one country only, namely, from India. If we take the production of minerals, we find the same picture, since we deal here to a certain extent with what is known as the natural resources of a country.

Coal, for instance, is exported from countries with large coal deposits (England, Germany, United States, Austria, etc.); kerosene is produced in countries having an abundance of oil (United States, the Caucasus, Holland, India, Romania, Galicia); iron ore is extracted in Spain, Sweden, France, Algeria, Newfoundland, Cuba, etc.; manganese ore is to be found mainly in the Caucasus and Southern Russia, India, and Brazil; copper deposits are in abundance mostly in Spain, Japan, British South Africa, German Southwest Africa, Australia, Canada, United States, Mexico, Chile, and Bolivia." - Imperialism and the World Economy, Nikolai Bukharin, 1917

2
Evaluate the following questions on a country's economic system. These include being based on how it allocates its resources. Resource allocation and use is a problem and opportunity with which all societies are concerned, and it consists of:
Which goods and services should be produced with society's resources?
How should they be produced?
Who should get them and for what purpose?
Who decides such questions (and how)?

3
Verify the economic ideologies in your society. If an economy is inflexible or unresponsive due to whatever caused rigidity, it would leave no room for innovation or advancement. There are many ways for allocating resources, and they include ideologies comparable to those that follow:
Traditional, tribal economy - resources are allocated according to the long-lived practices of the past in each area. These economies were the dominant method of resource allocation in human history and still remain strong in many tribal societies in parts of Africa, South America, Asia, and the Pacific. They are stable and predictable, as long as that particular set of economy, of traditions and market conditions, exists without complicating factors.
Command economy- resources are allocated mostly by explicit instructions from some higher authority. These are also called centrally planned economies. The government usually controls all resource allocation in this type of economy.
Market economy- resources are allocated according to individual private profit.
Mixed economy- By far the most common economy. This is where some resources are centrally distributed and some resources are privately allocating according to profit.
Participatory economy- where economic actors can participate in the economy. Defined by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel.
Economic democracy within a nation, state, village, tribe or community, etc. means people can participate in some meaningful way in deciding many of the fundamental questions and answers posed in this arena. There are various forms of votes from pure democracy to representative forms. Inputs b