Note: This question has been answered from a welfare aspect, as you assume that you can be placed anywhere in the income distribution of the country.
Governments often focus on achieving the main macroeconomic objective of increasing economic growth, with the main aim of increasing the standard of living of its citizens. However, much like the proverb “A chain is as strong as its weakest link”, a country can only be as developed as its poorest citizen. Studies show that income inequality and economic growth are negatively correlated (Alesina and Rodrik 1994), implying you cannot increase economic growth significantly without decreasing income inequality. Henceforth, if I were to choose to be born in any country at any time period, it would be modern-day Norway.
Choosing a time period resulted in me looking at the proportion of the world population under the absolute poverty threshold of $1.90 a day throughout history. The era of hyper-globalisation that we are currently in has been occurring since the 1980s. This has resulted in the economic liberalization of the two biggest countries by population in a more interconnected world, which in turn has led to over a billion people leaving extreme poverty in the last 25 years ("Decline Of Global Extreme Poverty Continues But Has Slowed: World Bank", 2018). As the below graph indicates, the continuously increasing gap in numbers between those in and those not in extreme poverty pushes me to believe I would want to be born in the modern day, to increase my chances of being above the absolute poverty line.
Note: Graph created by myself. Data source is Our World in Data – reference in bibliography.
Not knowing where I would appear on the income distribution results in the importance of choosing an egalitarian, as well as prosperous, nation. Norway fares relatively well in this measure with their mixed economy, balancing the incentives offered to entrepreneurs by a capitalist system as well as the necessary redistributive measures (Stantcheva 2021) to ensure that social mobility is an expectation for all, rather than a dream. Redistribution acts to shift the Lorenz curve from market income to disposable income in my diagram. This is clear from Norway’s GDP per capita of $67,389 ("GDP Per Capita (Current US$) - Norway | Data", 2020), which is one of the highest in the world, as well as its Gini coefficient of 0.276 ("Gini Index (World Bank Estimate) - Norway | Data", 2018), which indicates one of the most equitable distributions of income in the world.
Note: Graph created by myself. Data source is World Development Indicators from World Bank – reference in bibliography.
In conclusion, I would choose to be born in the modern day, to maximize my chances of avoiding being born in extreme poverty. I would choose to be born in Norway, due to its prosperity and equitability. Furthermore, Norway’s HDI of 0.957 ("Human Development Reports", 2019) is the highest in the world, signalling the high standard of living for the average citizen there.
Bibliography:
1) Alberto Alesina, Dani Rodrik, Distributive Politics and Economic Growth, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 109, Issue 2, May 1994, Pages 465–490, https://doi.org/10.2307/2118470
2) Stantcheva, Stefanie. 2021. "What Different Ways Can Policy-Makers Address Inequality? - Economics Observatory". Economics Observatory. https://www.economicsobservatory.com/what-different-ways-can-policy-makers-address-inequality.
3) Decline Of Global Extreme Poverty Continues But Has Slowed: World Bank". 2018. World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/19/decline-of-global-extreme-poverty-continues-but-has-slowed-world-bank.
4) Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2013) - "Global Extreme Poverty". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty’ [Online Resource]
5) "World Development Indicators | Databank". 2022. Databank.Worldbank.Org. https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=SI.POV.GINI&country=NOR#.
6) "Gini Index (World Bank Estimate) - Norway | Data". 2022. Data.Worldbank.Org. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=NO.
7) "Human Development Reports". 2022. Hdr.Undp.Org. https://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/NOR.
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