New Challenges in Seismic Design - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 7

present, its benefits lie in a distant future. Moreover, the benefits are not tangible:
they are the disasters that did NOT happen” (Annan, 1999).
1.2.3 Seismic ProblemsofDevelopedandDevelopingCountries
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) represents the marked value of goods and services
produced by labor and property in a country (BEA, 2005). The GDP per capita is
the ratio:
GDP per capita = GDP/total population
being used as an indicator giving an idea of goods and services available to the
residents of a country, and representing the material well-being of the population
(WDI, 2005).
(a)
Figure 1.2 (continued)