As an econ major, it seems to me that you're only getting downvoted because HN is a typical place full of engineers with little econ understanding but lots of o

As an econ major, it seems to me that you're only getting downvoted because HN is a typical place full of engineers with little econ understanding but lots of opinion. Whether a country is developed or not is defined based on their standard of living per capita, not their absolute size. A country with a billion poor people has completely different social, demographic, industrial and political drivers than a country of 300m high I come people.