subject: Economic Development [print this page] Economic Development Economic Development
Economic development first became a major concern after World War n. As the era of European colonialism ended, many former colonies and other countries with low living standards came to be termed underdeveloped countries, to contrast their economies with those of the developed countries, which were understood to be Canada, the United States, those of Western Europe, most eastern European countries, the Soviet Union, Japan,Replica Omega South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. As living standards in most poor countries began to rise in subsequent decades, they were renamed the developing countries.
There is no universally accepted definition of what a developing country is; neither is there one of what constitutes the process of economic development. Developing countries are usually categorized by a per capita income criterion, and economic development is usually thought to occur as per capita incomes rise. A country's per capita income (which is almost synonymous with per capita output) is the best available measure of the value of the goods and services available, per person, to the society per year. Although there are a number of problems of measurement of both the level of per capita income and its rate of growth, these two indicators are the best available to provide estimates of the level of economic well-being within a country and of its economic growth.
It is well to consider some of the statistical and conceptual difficulties of using the conventional criterion of underdevelopment before analyzing the causes of underdevelopment. The statistical difficulties are well known. To begin with, there are the awkward borderline cases. Even if analysis is confined to the underdeveloped and developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, there are rich oil countries that have per capita incomes well above the rest but that are otherwise underdeveloped in their general economic characteristics. Second, there are a number of technical difficulties that make the per capita incomes of many underdeveloped countries (expressed in terms of an international currency, such as the U. S. dollar) a very crude measure of their per capita real income.
These difficulties include the defectiveness of the basic national income and population statistics, the inappropriateness of the official exchange rates at which the national incomes in terms of the respective domestic currencies are converted into the common denominator of the U. S. dollar, and the problems of estimating the value of the noncash components of real incomes in the underdeveloped countries. Finally, there are conceptual problems in interpreting the meaning of the international differences in the per capita income levels. Although the difficulties with income measures are well established, measures of per capita income correlate reasonably well with other measures Replica Watches Tag Heuer of economic well-being, such as life
Expectancy, infant mortality rates, and literacy rates. Other indicators, such as nutritional status and the per capita availability of hospital beds, physicians, and teachers, are also closely related to per capita income levels. While a difference of, say, 10 percent in per capita incomes between two countries would not be regarded as necessarily indicative of a difference in living standards between them, actual observed differences are of a much larger magnitude. India's per capita income, for example, was estimated at $ 270 in 1985. In contrast, Brazil's was estimated to be $ 1,640, and Italy's was $ 6,520. While economists have cited a number of reasons why the implication that Italy's living standard was 24 times greater than India's might be biased upward, no one would doubt that the Italian living standard was significantly higher than that of Brazil, which in turn was higher than India's by a wide margin.
