4.3 Emerging and developing economies Flashcards
Define economic development with the two indicators
Is the sustainable increase in living standards for a country, typically characterised by increases in lifespan, education levels, & income
single indicators: quantitative data
composite indicators: such as the HDI
Human development index (HDI)
A measure of economic development
Index is between 0 to 1
The closer to 1, the higher the economic growth
3 HDI indicators and how they are measured and combined
Health: measured by life expectancy at birth
Education: the mean years of schooling that 25 year old have had and expected years of a current 5 year old
Income: As measured by the GNI per capita at PPP
Disadvantages of HDI as a measure of economic development
- doesn’t measure the inequality (because it uses the mean GNI/Capita)
- it does not compare the absolute/relative poverty
- health doesn’t take the quality of health into account and education doesn’t take quality and success of edu into account
Advantages of the HDI as a measure of economic development
+ composite indicators have a more useful comparison than single indicators
+ incorporates the 3 most important metrics for households (H,E,I)
+ widely used universally meaning there is useful comparisons
+ provides a goal for govts when developing their policies
+ Citizens can compare how their quality of life is against other countries
Other indicators of economic development
IHDI (inequality adjusted HDI) :calculates loss in potential human development due to inequality
MPI (Multi-dimensional poverty index): measures the complexities of poor people’s lives. 10 indicators across 3 dimensions. to track deprivations
State the 11 factors influencing growth and development
- primary product dependency
- volatility of commodity prices
- savings gap [harrod-domar model]
- foreign currency gap
- capital flight
- demographic factors
- debt
- access to credit and banking
- infrastructure
- education/skills
- absence of property rights
primary product dependency
Primary products tend to have a very low YED. As world income rises, there is less than
proportional increase in demand
This means that there is limited scope to continue increasing demand
Primary products have very little added value
Exporting manufactured products raises the added value, incomes & profits
volatility of commodity prices
primary products tend to have inelastic PED
effecting producers incomes and the country’s income. They’re always fluctuating making it difficult to plan and carry out long term investment.
Investment in the production of commodities causes long term risk when prices fall
savings gap
is the difference between actual savings and the level of savings needed to achieve a higher growth rate
Developing countries have lower incomes, so they save less. Meaning there is less money for banks to lend, reducing borrowing and therefore investment/consumption.
However, there are problems with this model.
It is difficult for individuals to save when they have low incomes and borrowing form abroad leads to debt, meaning the investment could be wasted.
harrod-domar model (savings gap)
suggests that savings provides funds which are borrowed for investment purposes and that growth rates depend on the level of saving and productivity of investment. It concludes that economic growth depends on the amount of labour and capital. Developing countries have a large amount of labour meaning their problems are capital related. To improve capital, they need investment, which requires savings
foreign currency gap
when exports from a developing country are too low compared to their imports to finance the purchasing investment or other goods (from overseas) for faster economic growth
Ethiopia suffers from debt of 60% of their GDP
capital flight
large amounts of money are taken out of the country rather than it being left there for people to borrow and invest, this occurs to due the lack of confidence in the country’s stability, to hide it from the govt or for more profit. Leads to weak currency and depreciating ER
This caused Argentinian 2001 crisis
demographic factors
developing countries tend to have higher population growth. this is caused by higher birth rates, which increases the dependents in the country but not those of the working age.
if the pop grows by 5%, the economy needs to increase by 5% to maintain living standards
Africa’s pop is set to double by 2050, complicating hunger reduction
debt
During the 70s and 80s, developing countries received vast loans from the banks in developed countries. They now suffer from high levels of interest repayments. Meaning they have less money to spend on services for their population and they may raise their taxes (limiting g+d)
