NIC's such as East Asia and the Pacific region averaged a 7.5% growth in 1990-2001, despite severe recessions in the area, as globalisation has meant that the economic growth of these economies has soared in the past few decades.
Finally, the transition economies are ones that were the socialist economies, prior to socialism's collapse in the 1980's. They have attempted to transform from centrally planned economies into the free market enterprise methodology since 1989. For example, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland have made a relatively fast transition and are to become members of the EU in 2004. They are the exceptions however, with most other transition economies facing major difficulties adapting to the market system. Overall, transition economies have been negatively impacted by global trends, with economies in Europe and Central Asia experiencing an average fall in economic growth of 1.0% per year during 1990-2001 in contrast with an average 2.1% growth rate in the 1980's. For example, the Ukraine experienced an average fall in economic output or around 8% per year during 1990-2001. As the transition economies opened up their primarily socialist markets to free market enterprise, their standards of living and economic growth fell as they struggled to assimilate globalisation.
Economic development is a broad measure of welfare and social wellbeing of a population in a nation. While it is related to material living standards, it also includes indicators of health, education and environmental quality. Globalisation has affected the economic development and the quality of life of different economies in vastly diverse means. To measure a country's relative economic development, there are several indicators which are used universally. GNI (Gross Nation Income) is the sum value added by all resident products in economy plus receipts of primary income from foreign sources. HDI (Human Development Index) was developed by the United Nations Development Program as an alternative to GNI, and takes into account life expectancy, education levels and gross domestic product per capita.