Monday 16 March 2020

Quibans 93 – Royal Families


Quibans 93 – Royal Families
from CNN.

Here's how much Europe's royal families really cost




Question 1:
The UK monarchy is twice as expensive as every other one.  What is potentially misleading about this?


Answer 1:
The population of the UK is massively bigger than that of Monaco!

Question 2:
If we work out the cost per person in each country, where do you think the UK would be?

Answer 2:
Here is the next part of the article:


Question 3:
If we combine these two images, what can we work out?  (Then work it out!)



Answer 3:
We can work out the population of each country.
Here are my workings (with upper and lower bounds included too, perhaps as a talking point):



Question 4:
What else might we need to consider when working out how expensive a Royal Family is?



Answer 4:
There might be lots of other issues.  If palaces are being renovated then that will have a one-off cost.  The number of ‘working royals’ might be different in different countries, so there are different numbers of people being ‘paid’.  More working royals will require more admin support and staff. 
This doesn’t factor in the benefits to a nation of having a monarchy.   This might include the tourism that is attracted.  In the UK system the Queen is the head of state.  If we didn’t have a monarchy then we would need a different person doing that role (such as a president) who would need offices, staff, etc, so some of these costs would still be necessary.


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