Week 6 : Growth vs Development

Question 1

Other aspects to human life other than GDP such as?

Answer 1

-Lifespan
-Violence
-Height
-Leisure Time
-Education
-Inequality: Economic, Gender and Ethnic Group
-Happiness

Question 2

How has lifespan improved over time and what are limits of this data?

Answer 2

-doubled over last 500 years

• average disguises very high death rates during
  childhood
• Famines, Epidemics and Violence were much more frequent
  than today

Question 2

When was this increase in life expectancy for nobles and the rest?

Answer 2

1600 for nobles
1900 for the rest

Question 3

Why did mortality decline?

Answer 3

-Economic Growth

-Public Health Measures

-Human Capital

-Germ Theory

Question 4

Reasons for lower violence?

Answer 4

-The State
-commerce
-feminization,
-literacy & media
-the scientific revolution

-Elias’s theories

Question 5

How has violence changed over time?

Answer 5

• decline in all kinds of violence over time

Question 6

What are Elias’s theories?

Answer 6

-Civilizing process
-history of manners

Question 7

How is height used as a measure of wellbeing?

Answer 7

-Height= Genes + Nutrition - Disease

Question 8

How has height changed over time?

Answer 8

-Increased

Question 9

How has leisure time changed relative to I.R?

Answer 9

-work less than I.R ,
-later start
-retire more years from death
-work lower proportion of our lives

Question 10

What is a reason for this fall in working hours?

Answer 10

-Child legislation and education act, led to fall in working hours

-as children work during I.R

Question 11

How are literacy rates compared to the past?

Answer 11

-Today around 100%

-

Question 12

How did education institutions form in relation to literacy rates?

Answer 12

-Sequence of Schooling Acts

-But this came after a secular increase in literacy over many
centuries

Question 13

What is HDI?

Answer 13

-Human Development Index

-combine GDP, education and health data

-composite measure of development

Question 14

What can we infer from education institutions being established after a gradual increase over literacy over many centuries?

Answer 14

-institutions (such as schools and laws) often develop as a response to societal changes, rather than driving those changes

Question 15

Inequality facts ?

Answer 15

• a lot of inequality between countries relative to individuals

-we see this divergence aligning with I.R

-close to no rise of middle class wealth 1892-1992

Question 16

Equality facts?

Answer 16

-more equality between race and gender

Question 17

On the whole, in metrics of development how is life today compared to before?

Answer 17

Life is Better Today than in the Past On Every Metric of
Development
-Longer Lifespan
- Lower Violence
- Taller
- more Leisure Time
- more learned Education
-More equal in Economic, Gender and ethnic groups

Question 18

What is HIHD?

Answer 18

-Historical Index of Human Development)

-uses a non-linear transformation of social variables to account for the fact that improvements at higher levels represent greater achievements (like adult literacy)

-

Question 19

Issues with HDI?

Answer 19

linear transformation of social variables in the UNDP HDI, arguing that it favors countries with lower initial levels of human development and narrows differences across countries

Question 20

Social spending and impact on human development?

Answer 20

-diminishing at higher rates