Final Exam Flashcards
Link Between Health and Education
- both investments made in the same person
- investment in health increase health capital –> raise return on the investment in education
- investment in education increase education capital –> raise return on investment in health
Child Labour
- children under the age of 15 shouldn’t work, and if they do it disrupts/prevents schooling (Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa)
- work helps support necessities (food/nutrition, school fees)
Education and Gender
- Niger, Mali, Guinea, Benin, South Asia
- female literacy rates less than half of men
- 123 million youth lack basic reading & writing (61% young women)
Closing the Gender Gap
Desirable for 3 reasons:
- rate of return on women’s education is higher than men’s
- increases women’s productivity –> earnings, higher labor force participation, later marriage, lower fertility and improved child health/nutrition
- reduces poverty because women carry disproportionate burden of poverty
Derived Demand and Supply
- derived demand: demand for a good emerges indirectly from demand for another good
- supply: quantity of school places is determined by political processes
Developed Countries: High Demand for Education, Educational Certification
- jobs for the uneducated are limited, individuals seek increasingly higher levels of education
- govts and employers in developing countries reinforce this trend through educational certification requirements
- educational certification includes the requirements by which particular jobs require specified levels of education
Social Benefits of Education
- benefits that accrue to others or a society as a whole (i.e. benefits of a more literate workforce)
- in developing countries SB of education is less than PB
Social vs. Private Costs of Education in Developing countries
- SC increases quickly when education increases
- SC are borne by society from education (i.e. government subsidies)
- SC contain opportunity cost to society; government is spending limited resources
- PC include the costs borne by students themselves
- PC increases slower when education increases because social costs include the opportunity cost
Health Definition
- a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity
AIDS/HIV
- final and fatal stage of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
- close to 70 million people have been infected with HIV, half of the infected have died of AIDS
- most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa
- more than 95% of all HIV cases and AIDS deaths occur in the developing world
Malaria
- transmitted through the bite from an infected mosquito that carries a parasite, when mosquito bites you the parasite goes into your bloodstream
- mostly affects impoverished African children, directly causes over 1 million deaths each year
- big impact on pregnant women, even if the children survive, about 15% of the children experience substantial neurological problems and learning disabilities
Schistosomiasis (bilharziasis or snail fever)
- one of the worst parasitic diseases, big negative impact on development
- caused by waterborne flatworms released from infected freshwater snails
- infects about 200 million people in 74 developing countries, half are school age children
African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
- insect (infected fly) borne parasitc disease
- mainly in remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa
- due to weaknesses of health systems, most people who contract sleeping sickness die before they are even diagnosed
- also kills cattle and leads to the abandonment of fertile but infected land
Robert Fogel Study
- found that citizens of developed countries are substantially taller today than they were two centuries ago. - says height is a useful index of the health and general well-being of a population –> increases in height in recent decades signals improvements in health conditions in developing countries.
- If height is an indicator of general health status –> higher productivity –> taller people should earn higher wages.
John Strauss and Duncan Thomas
- found in Brazil that taller men earn more money
- also found a link between height and wages in the U.S. but it a weaker connection
- shorter individuals are more likely to be unemployed and taller people receive more education than shorter people
4 Reasons for Effective Government Role in Health Systems
- Health is central to poverty alleviation,
- Households spend too little on health
- The market would invest too little in health infrastructure, research and development
- Public health programs in developing countries have many proven successes
Subsistence Agriculture
- refers to the fact that they are struggling to survive with their agricultural activities
- goal is to achieve development and make sure development becomes self-sustaining
Integrated Rural Development
contains rural development activities (i.e. small-farmer agricultural progress), the provision of physical and social infrastructure, the development of rural non-farm industries, and the capacity of the rural sector to sustain and accelerate the pace of these improvements over time.
Agrarian system
represents the pattern of land distribution, ownership, and management, and the social and institutional structure of the agrarian economy
Market Failures in Agricultural Sector and the Need for Government Policy
- govt plays a role to alleviate poverty because most of the worlds poor are farmers
- poverty prevents farmers from being prosperous and since they don’t have collateral they can’t get credit with good interest rates
- no credit = can’t hire workers –> hire their kids –> kids out of school
- kids have poor nutrition –> don’t perform at best capacity –> not enough income to afford better health
- NGO provides some help to these issues but govt needs to play some role/support
Latifundio
- A very large landholding that is especially seen in Latin America
- usually employs more than 12 people and are owned by a small number of landlords comprising a disproportionate share of total agricultural land
- operating well below productivity potential
Minifundio
- A small landholding especially found in Latin America that is considered too small to provide adequate employment for a single family
- usually are capable of providing work for fewer than two people
- in poverty
Family Farm
- A farm plot owned and operated by a single household
- Provide work for two to four people
- more efficient
Medium Size Farm
- A farm employing between 4 to 12 workers
- more efficient
Transaction Costs
costs of doing business such as gathering information, monitoring, establishing reliable suppliers, formulating contracts, obtaining credit, etc.
Sharecropper
a tenant farmer whose crop has to be shared with the landlord based on a rental contract
Tenant Farmers
farms on the land but has no ownership and has to pay for the use of that land
ex. by giving a share of output to the owner of the land
Moneylender
- is a person who lends money at high interest rates to peasant farmers to meet their needs for seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs
- if farmers can’t make payments on loans, the land is transferred to moneylender which then sold to rich landlords
Subsistence Farming
includes most activities of farming such as crop production and stock rearing which are conducted mainly for personal consumption.
Shifting Cultivation
tilling land until it has been exhausted of fertility then moving to a new land in order to make sure that the former land will regain fertility so that it can be cultivated again later.
Cash Crops
crops produced entirely for the market
Women in Agriculture
- duties are usually limited to the strenuous jobs of weeding and transplanting (unrecognized and unpaid)
- government sponsored programs usually exclude women (lack collateral, cant conduct financial transactions w/o husbands)
- rarely given training
- social/cultural barriers: women income is threat to mens authority
- *development programs working directly w/ women are more successful
3 Stages in the Evolution of Agricultural Production
- The pure, low-productivity, mostly subsistence-level traditional (peasant) farm.
- Diversified or mixed family agriculture.
- The modern farm.
Staple Food
the main food consumed by a large portion of a country’s population
cassava, wheat, barley, sorghum, rice, potatoes, or corn
produced in the subsistence farm as the primary sources of nutrition –> output and productivity are low (traditional methods and tools)
Diversified (mixed) Farming
- the production of both staple crops and cash crops and simple animal husbandry; this could be an intermediate step in the transition from subsistence to specialized farming
Specialized Farming
the final and most advanced stage in agricultural production in which farm output is produced wholy for the market
goal is pure commercial profit
specialized farms with a variety of sizes and functions.
2 Sources of Technological Innovation to Increase Farm Yields
- introduce mechanized agriculture that would replace human labour
- Biological (hybrid seeds and biotechnology), water control (irrigation), and chemical (fertilizer, pesticides, insecticides, etc.) innovations
Green Revolution
the boost in grain production associated with the scientific discovery of new hybrid seed varieties of wheat, rice, and corn that have resulted in high farm yields in many developing countries
Land Reform
involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership
may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural land
Export Dependence
a country’s reliance on exports as the major source of financing for development activities
Current Account
the portion of a country’s balance of payments that reflects the market value of the country’s exports and imports
Capital Account
the portion of a country’s balance of payments that shows the volume of private foreign investment and public grants and loans that flow into and out of the country
Current Account Defecit
the excess of import payments over export receipts