Revista del CEI - Centro de Economía Internacional

Table 7High Human Development Index (1)Position in the ranking of countriesYear Australia Argentina1900 4 131930 9 111950 4 141974 7 182004 3 36(1) It includes the top 50 countries according to life expentancy, literacy, school enrolment, access tohealth care, GDP and other indicators.Source: Angus Madison (1900-1974). UNDP Human Develoment Report 2005.Income distribution measured by the Gini coefficient, where 0 represents a totally egalitarian situation and100 a totally concentrated one, is 35.2 in Australia and 49.5 in Argentina. Health care expenditureamounts to 9.5% of GDP in Australia and 8.9% in Argentina; government expenditure in education is 4.9%and 4.0% of GDP, respectively. Innovation investment is 0.4% of GDP in Argentina, whereas it is 1.6% inAustralia. As far as gross fixed investment is concerned, this is, plants and equipment for production andservice activities, it reached 15.9% and 19.8% of GDP in Australia and Argentina in 2005, respectively(Table 8).Table 8Expenditure and InvestmentGDP Share. Year 2002Component Australia ArgentinaHealth Care 9.5 8.9Education 4.9 4.0Defence 1.9 1.2Debt Service 1.5 5.7Gross Fixed Investment 15.9 19.8Gini Coefficient 35.2 52.2Source: Human Development Report 2005, Reserve Bank of Australia and National Institute of Statistics and Censusesof Argentina.Over the past years, the reduction in the burden of debt on the government budget has given rise to ahigher availability of resources for government investment in Argentina, positively contributing to anincrease in total investment after a long period of relative decline. The purchase of equipment and buildingof plants by the private sector, in view of the improvement of companies’ debt to equity ratios as from 2002has contributed in the same sense. Among the modifications to the government budget worth mentioning