Development: goals, income and sustainability - economics

Seite 1

ECONOMICS

Notes

Key points

Parameters of development

Different people have different development goals

Mix goals of developments

National development

Conflicting notions of people

Basis of comparison

Average income

World bank:world development report

Income and other criterias

Public facilities

UNDP: human development report

Sustainable development

Parameters of development

Different people have different development goals

People seek things which are important to them, which can fulfil their aspirations

Two people might seek things which have conflicting notions

A girl might seek as much freedom and opportunities as her brother, and that he has a share in household things, but her brother might dislike this.

For more electricity, industrialists would want more dams. But this may disrupt the lives of the tribal people living there, as they might get displaced from the place they were initially living in.

Different people have different development goals, what may be development for one might not be for another, it might as well be destruction for the other.

Mix goals for development

One common thing which people desire is better wages, regular work and decent price for their crops, in other words, better income

Besides income, people desire other things such as respect, equal treatment and freedom. They resent discrimination. In some cases, these non-material factors might be more important than money.

Money is one factor on which life depends, but the quality of our life also depends on non-material factors.

When a person first gets a job

National development

Refers to the development of a country as whole

Conflicting notions of people

Individuals seek different development goals, so their perspective for national development is different as well

Different people can have different as well as conflicting notions of development

Basis of comparison

Development means different things, so when we compare countries, they could have similar as well as different aspects

Average income

To compare a country, its total income can be used, but since the population of different countries vary, total income is not useful.

In such cases average income is used. Average income is the total income of a country divided by its total population. It is also known as per capita income.

While averages are useful, they hide disparities

Averages are useful for comparison but they don't tell us how the income is distributed between people.

Many people would prefer to live in a country in which there is an equitable distribution of income, i.e. neither rich nor poor.

World bank:world development report

The world development report published by world bank compares countries based on their per capita income

Countries with per capita income of US$12056 are called rich countries

Countries with US$955 are classified as low income countries.

India comes in low middle income countries with a PCI of US$1820 per annum.

Income and other criterias

For development, people not only think of income, but other non-material factors such as respect and freedom.

STATE

PER CAPITA INCOME

haryana

1,62,034

kerala

1,40.190

bihar

31,454

PER CAPITA INCOME: According to the above table, haryana has the highest per capita of the three, and bihar has the lowest, so according to per capita income, haryana should be considered the most developed state and bihar the least.

INFANT MORTALITY RATE: IMR refers to the number of deaths of children aged below one year.In kerala out of 1000 children, 11 died before completing one year of age, whereas in punjab 49 children died before completing one year of age

LITERACY RATE: this measures the proportion of literate population in the seven and above age group.

NET ATTENDANCE RATIO: this is the number of children of the age group 14 to 15 years attending school as a percentage of total number of children in the same age group.

Public facilities

Money in your pocket may not be essential to buy all the goods and services you may need to survive.

Income by itself is not a completely adequate indicator of material goods and services that citizens are able to use

Money cannot buy a pollution-free environment or ensure unadulterated medicines unless a person can afford to shift to a community which already has all these things.

Money cannot protect a person from infectious disease unless the whole community takes protective steps.

The best or the cheapest way is to provide these goods collectively i.e. to the whole society or the community.

In states where the Public Distribution System (PDS) functions well, the health and education status of the people living there is likely to be better.

UNDP: human development report

Level of income is important, yet it is an inadequate measure of thelvel of development of a country.

Over the past decade, health and education indicators have come to be widely used along with income as a measure of development.

The Human Development Report published by UNDP uses educational level, health facilities and per capita income as a parameter for development.

INDIA AND ITS NEIGHBOURS AS PER HDI RANK

COUNTRY

GROSS NATIONAL INCOME

LIFE EXPECTANCY

MEAN YEARS OF SCHOOLING

HDI RANK IN THE WORLD

Sri lanka

11.326

75.5

10.9

76

India

6,353

68.3

6.4

130

Myanmar

5,567

66.7

4.9

148

Pakistan

5,331

66.6

5.2

150

Nepal

2,471

70.6

4.9

149

Bangladesh

3,677

72.8

5.8

136

HDI stands for Human Development Index. HDI ranks a total of 189 countries.

Life expectancy rate denotes the expected life span of a person at the time of birth.

Per capita income is calculated in dollars in such a way that every dollar would buy the same amount of goods in any country. It is done so for easy comparison between countries.

BMI or Body Mass Index tells about a person's nourishment level in the body. It is measured as weight in kgs upon height in meter squared.

Under 18.5- under nourished

18.5 to 25- perfectly balanced

Above 25- overweight

Sustainable development