Questions:
Part 1
1. Most development economists now seem to agree that the level and rate of growth of GNI and per capita income do not provide sufficient measures of a country's development. What is the essence of their argument? Give some examples.
2. Distinguish between size and functional distributions of income in a nation. Which do you conclude is the more appropriate concept? Explain your answer.
3. What is meant by absolute poverty? What measures of income poverty are favored by development economists? How do these measures differ from the UNDP's Multidimensional Poverty Index? Why should we be concerned with the measurement of poverty in developing nations?
4. Describe Kuznets's inverted-U hypothesis. Discuss the conceptual merits and limitations of this hypothesis for contemporary developing countries.
5. What is the relationship between a Lorenz curve and a Gini coefficient? Give some examples of how Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients can be used as summary measures of equality and inequality in a nation's distribution of income.
6. Are rapid economic growth (as measured by either GNI or per capita GNI) and a more equal distribution of personal income necessarily conflicting objectives? Summarize the arguments both for and against the presumed conflict of objectives, and state and explain your own view.
7. How might inequality lead to faster growth or development? How might it lead to slower growth or development?
8. Is progress being made in the fight against poverty? Why or why not?
9. What types of poverty policies have proved effective?
Part 2
1. Population growth in developing nations has proceeded at unprecedented rates over the past few decades. Compare and contrast the present rate of population growth in less developed countries with that of the modern developed nations during their early growth years. What has been the major factor contributing to rapid developing country population growth since the Second World War? Explain your answer.
2. What is the relationship between the age structure of a population and its dependency burden? Is the dependency burden higher or lower in developing countries? Why?
3. Explain the notion of the hidden momentum of population growth. Why is this an important concept for projecting future population trends in different developing nations?
4. Describe briefly the theory of the demographic transition. At what stage in this transition do most developing countries seem to be? Explain your answer.
5. How does the microeconomic theory of fertility relate to the theory of consumer choice? Do you think that economic incentives and disincentives influence family size decisions? Explain your answer, giving some specific examples of such incentives and disincentives.
6. List and briefly describe the principal causes of high population growth in developing countries and the major consequences.
7. Explain why fertility rates are falling much more rapidly in some developing countries than in others.
8. Outline and comment briefly on some of the arguments in support of the idea that population growth is a serious problem in developing nations.
9. Outline and comment briefly on the various policy options available to developing countries' governments in their attempt to modify or limit the rate of population growth.
Part 3
1. Why might the problem of rapid urbanization be a more significant population policy issue than curtailing population growth rates over the next two decades for most developing countries? Explain your answer.
2. Describe briefly the essential assumptions and major features of the Todaro model of rural-urban migration. One of the most significant implications of this model is the paradoxical conclusion that government policies designed to create more urban employment may in fact lead to more urban unemployment. Explain the reasons for such a paradoxical result.
3. "The key to solving the serious problem of excessive rural-urban migration and rising urban unemployment and underemployment in developing countries is to restore a proper balance between urban and rural economic and social opportunities." Discuss the reasoning behind this statement, and give a few specific examples of government policies that would promote a better balance between urban and rural economic and social opportunities.
4. For many years, the conventional wisdom of development economics assumed an inherent conflict between the objectives of maximizing output growth and promoting rapid industrial employment growth. Might these two objectives be mutually supportive rather than conflicting? Explain your answer.
5. What is meant by the expression "getting prices right"? Under what conditions will eliminating factor price distortions generate substantial new employment opportunities? (Be sure to define factor price distortions.)
6. The informal sector is becoming an ever-larger part of the urban economy. Distinguish between the urban formal and informal sectors, and discuss both the positive and the negative aspects of the informal urban labor market.
7. Why are primate cities-generally the capital-often disproportionately large in many developing countries? Which factors can be addressed with better policies?
8. What is an industrial district? How might governments of developing countries help them succeed?
Part 4
1. What reasons would you give for the rather sizable school dropout rates in developing countries? What might be done to lower these rates?
2. It is often asserted that educational systems in developing countries, especially in rural areas, are unsuited to the real social and economic needs of development. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Explain your reasoning.
3. How would you explain the fact that relative costs of and returns to higher education are so much higher in developing than in developed countries?
4. What is the supposed rationale for subsidizing higher education in many developing countries? Do you think that it is a legitimate rationale from an economic viewpoint? Explain your answer.
5. What do we mean by the economics of education? To what extent do you think educational planning and policy decisions ought to be guided by economic considerations? Explain, giving hypothetical or actual examples.
6. What is meant by the statement "The demand for education is a ‘derived demand' for high-paying modern-sector job opportunities"?
7. Distinguish carefully between private and social benefits and costs of education. What economic factors give rise to the wide divergence between private and social benefit-to-cost valuations in most developing countries? Should governments attempt through their educational and economic policies to narrow the gap between private and social valuations? Explain.
8. Describe and comment on each of the following education-development relationships:
a. Education and economic growth: Does education promote growth? How?
b. Education, inequality, and poverty: Do educational systems typical of most developing countries tend to reduce, exacerbate, or have no effect on inequality and poverty? Explain with specific reference to a country with which you are familiar or investigate.
c. Education and migration: Does education stimulate rural-urban migration? Why?
d. Education and fertility: Does the education of women tend to reduce their fertility? Why?
e. Education and rural development: Do most formal educational systems in developing countries contribute substantially to the promotion of rural development? Explain.
f. Education and the brain drain: What factors cause the international migration of high-level educated workers from developing to developed countries? What do we mean by the internal brain drain? Explain, giving examples.
9. Governments can influence the character, quality, and content of their educational systems by manipulating important economic and noneconomic factors or variables both outside of and within educational systems. What are some of these external and internal factors, and how can government policies make education more relevant to the real meaning of development?
10. What makes for (a) a good and fair health system and (b) a good and fair education system?
11. What are the consequences of gender bias in health and education? Can a large gap between male and female literacy affect development? Why?
12. What is the human capital approach to health and education? What do you think are its most important strengths and weaknesses?
13. What are the strategies being discussed to address the problem of child labor? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?
14. What are the relationships between health and education, on the one hand, and productivity and incomes, on the other?
15. What can government do to make health systems more equitable