What is the total wealth of the planet of which we all share?

Question

What is the most accurate indication of the worlds total population? the total wealth divided by the population will give the average wealth of an individual. would this make a good basis for a single stable world currency?

Answer 1

Total wealth, or total realizable wealth? At this point, there's a great deal of untapped wealth. Consider the oil, gas, and mineral deposits that have not yet been touched. Also consider that the wealth held in real estate fluctuates with population shifts.

A 2005 estimate by the IMF of global GDP (which only measures the value of products and services produced in that nation) gives a nominal figure of $44,433,002,000,000 - which equates to a roughly real GDP (adjusted for Price Parity) of $61,078,260,000,000. The estimated world population at the end of 2005 (to keep consistent with prior figures) is 6,453,628,000 persons.

This means a rough per capita nGDP of $6,884.96 per person, or a per capita rGDP of $9,464.17.

This would not be a good basis for, or reason to implement, a world currency. Stability in a currency is not the same as stability in an economy - often quite the opposite. It would be exceptionally difficult to maintain price stability due to regional shortages/surpluses, since the price of a good is more determined by the supply and demand in that particular market, and since markets even for homogenous goods are not the same world-wide (consider the difference in price for winter wheat in the Arabian peninsula versus the U.S.).

The only real advantage to having a single currency is that it would reduce administrative costs. That said, those reduced administrative costs would be overrun in attempting to prevent counterfeiting of the currency and measure and maintain a stable supply.

Answer 2

The global currency at this time would be a counterproductive idea. Countries that could benefit from a common currency are countries that (1) trade a lot with each other, (2) do not limit international movement of labor and capital, (3) tend to respond to external shocks (such as changes in oil prices) similarly, and (4) have a common tax and transfer system.

Answer 3

I think we can trust the World Factbook.
It says the world population is 6.5 billion, and the GDP/capita is $9,500. Of course, this is only an average, some countries have much better, some countries have much worse GDP.
As for the global currency, it is not possible till inflation is stable. In the EU it can't (shouldn't) be bigger than 3% to introduce the Euro.