<p>i heard with harvards endowment, if harvard were a country it would be one of the top 20 richest nations in the world</p>
<p>As a non-profit they would be required to spnd 5% of that a year were it not for the fact that educational entities are exempt from the requirement.</p>
<p>is what i mentioned true</p>
<p>no, it is not true. We’re talking about 25 billion dollars, not trillion dollars.</p>
<p>the OP’s point is often made by comparing the size of harvard’s endowment to the GDP of small countries. now, i’m no economist, but i don’t think this is a proper comparison of quantities, as endowment and GDP figures “capture” very different things.</p>
<p>GDP is flow, endowment is accumulated wealth. It is a complete fallacy. A good comparison would instead be the turnaround of harvard to the gdp of a country.</p>
<p>endowment vs foreign reserve of those smaller countries may be a better way to measure.</p>
<p>i heard its the 2nd richest organization in the world, second to the vatican or some stuff like that…</p>
<p>Harvard’s endowment would not count towards GDP. Its services, education, and its products, patented research, would.</p>