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IGCE,Economic Growth - Productivity & Economic Development, A LEVEL Notes

Economic Growth - Productivity & Economic Development

Introduction

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency with which a country combines capital and labour to produce more with the same level of factor inputs. We commonly focus on labour productivity measured by output per person employed or output per person hour.

A better measure of productivity growth is total factor productivity which takes into account changes in the amount of capital to use and also changes in the size of the labour force.

If the size of the capital stock grows by 3% and the employed workforce expands by 2% and output (GDP) increases by 8%, then total factor productivity has increased by 3%.

Productivity is an important determinant of living standards – it quantifies how an economy uses the resources it has available, by relating the quantity of inputs to output. As the adage goes, productivity isn't everything, but in the long run it’s almost everything.
Higher productivity can lead to:

• Lower unit costs: These cost savings might be passed onto consumers in lower prices, encouraging higher demand, more output and an increase in employment.
• Improved competitiveness and trade performance: Productivity growth and lower unit costs are key determinants of the competitiveness of firms in global markets.
• Higher profits: Efficiency gains are a source of larger profits for companies which might be re-invested to support the long term growth of the business.
• Higher wages: Businesses can afford higher wages when their workers are more efficient.
• Economic growth: If an economy can raise the rate of growth of productivity then the trend growth of national output can pick up.
• Productivity improvements mean that labour can be released from one industry and be made available for another – for example, rising efficiency in farming will increase production yields and provide more food either to export or to supply a growing urban population.
• If the size of the economy is bigger, higher wages will boost consumption, generate more tax revenue to pay for public goods and perhaps give freedom for tax cuts on people and businesses.

The Productivity Gap

Productivity varies hugely across nations. The Millennium Development Goals Report for 2012 stated that the dollar value of output per worker in the developed regions of the world was $64,319 in 2011, compared with an average of $13,077 in developing regions.

A table of selected data on output per worker employed is shown below.

Output per worker  ($000, at constant 2005 prices, PPP adjusted)	1991	2011
Sub-Saharan Africa	5	6
Southern Asia	4	9
South-Eastern Asia	6	10
Latin America and the Caribbean	20	23
Developing regions	6	13
Developed regions	48	64

What are the main determinants of factor productivity in a country?

For example, South Korea has achieved sustained improvements in labour productivity – a key factor behind escaping the middle-income trap.

Our chart below tracks the annual change in output per worker employed and real GDP. Higher productivity growth is a key reason why South Korea has now become a high-income member of the OECD.

Case Study – Productivity Gains in China

China has achieved impressive gains in productivity in recent years. Some of this is undoubtedly the huge spending on capital investment which has grown to nearly 50% of China’s GDP. The labour force has also grown although this is scheduled to level off and then decline in the years ahead.

What has driven improvements in Chinese total factor productivity?

• Resource shifts: There has been a huge shift of resources out of relatively low productivity agriculture into more productive work in manufacturing industry and construction. Over half of the Chinese population now lives in urban areas.
• New technology and innovation: The willingness of Chinese businesses to adopt and exploit new production technologies and process innovations. Mobile telephony has expanded at a rapid rate
• FDI effects: High levels of foreign direct investment into China have boosted productivity – new manufacturing capacity and technology has lifted efficiency and may well have led to productivity spill-over effects among supply-chain businesses. For example, in April 2012, Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest memory chip maker, unveiled plans to invest $7bn (£4.4bn) to build its first chip factory in China.
• Openness and global competition: The Chinese economy has become more open – trade is accounting for a rising share of national income – global competition is a stimulus for efficiency improvements
• Better infrastructure: Heavy state spending on critical infrastructure has improved the overall efficiency of the economy for example in reducing transport delays and increasing communication speeds
• Management: Restructuring of state-owned businesses has been a factor behind better productivity. The Economist magazine reported recently that “sophisticated methods of control, more productive use of assets and rapid globalisation have boosted productivity”
• Improved wages: There is strong pressure for mean wages to rise in China especially as the latest Five Year Plan emphasises the need to boost domestic demand. Will a number of years of rapid wage acceleration provide a boost to worker productivity?

Although China’s productivity improvements are impressive, the process of catch-up with advanced nations still has a long way to go. China’s labour productivity is about 12 per cent of that of the USA

Case study: Improving Productivity in Agriculture – Focus on the Indian Farm Sector

Some of the gains from rising farm productivity are expressed in the flow chart below. For India, despite attempts at land reform to boost the incentives for farmers, agricultural value added per worker expressed in real US dollars has grown slowly. The divergence between India and South Korea is striking.

The virtuous circle of rising agricultural productivity

In 2011, nearly 70% of Indians still live in the countryside and over half work on the farm but many are tenant farmers operating with short-term leases on their land and with little incentive to invest in machinery to improve farm yields and incomes. For example, annual rice yields in the Indian state of West Bengal remain at about half China’s level and below yields in Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Productivity is further hampered by inadequate infrastructure including poor roads and vulnerability to external climatic shocks such as droughts and floods.

Critics of India agriculture argue that whereas China has liberalized farming markets and encouraged farmers to build up surpluses to sell in local and regional markets, the India government spends too much money subsidizing fertilizer, power and water and price supports for certain farmers that have done little to stimulate diversification among rural producers.

Economic Development - Human Development Index (HDI), GCEO-IGCSE Notes

Economic Development - Human Development Index (HDI)

Introduction to the HDI

• The Human Development Index is published by the UNDP and focuses on longevity, basic education and minimal income. It tracks progress made by countries in improving these three outcomes.
• The inclusion of education and health indicators is a sign of successful government policies in providing access to important merit goods such as health care, sanitation and education.
• Knowledge: First an educational component made up of two statistics – mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling
• Long and healthy life: Second a life expectancy component is calculated using a minimum value for life expectancy of 25 years and maximum value of 85 years.
• A decent standard of living: The final element is gross national income (GNI) per capita adjusted to purchasing power parity standard (PPP).

The UNDP classifies each country into one of three development bins:

• Low human development for HDI scores between 0.0 and 0.5,
• Medium human development for HDI scores between 0.5 and 0.8
• High human development for HDI scores between 0.8 and 1.0.

Important note:
GNI is now used rather than GDP because of the growing size of remittances in the global economy and also the importance of international aid payments. For example, because of remittances from abroad, GNI in the Philippines greatly exceeds GDP
Log of income is used in the HDI calculation because income is instrumental to human development but higher incomes are assumed to have a declining contribution to human development

 Global Human Development Map for 2011

GNI per Capita - Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

This is a method of currency valuation based on the idea that two identical goods in different countries should eventually cost the same. This is illustrated by the Big Mac index, which takes a Big Mac hamburger and compares its prices in different countries in order to establish the relative value of their currencies. If PPP holds true, then you can buy the same goods and services with £100 in London as you can in Glasgow, New York and Cape Town. There are many reasons why this will not be the case!

Human Development Index for 2010

A selection of data drawn from the Human Development Index is provided in the table below.

Country	GNI per capita (2008 US$PPP)	HDI value	Inequality-adjusted HDI value (IHDI)	Life expectancy at birth (years)	Mean years of schooling (of adults) (years)
Norway	58,809	0.938	0.876	81.0	12.6
Australia	38,691	0.937	0.864	81.9	12.0
United States	47,093	0.902	0.799	79.6	12.4
Ireland	33,077	0.895	0.813	80.3	11.6
Canada	38,668	0.888	0.812	81.0	11.5
Sweden	36,936	0.885	0.824	81.3	11.6
Germany	35,308	0.885	0.814	80.2	12.2
Japan	34,692	0.884	Not available	83.2	11.5
Korea (Republic of)	29,517	0.877	0.731	79.8	11.6
France	34,340	0.872	0.792	81.6	10.4
Spain	29,661	0.863	0.779	81.3	10.4
Greece	27,580	0.855	0.768	79.7	10.5
Italy	29,619	0.854	0.752	81.4	9.7
United Kingdom	35,087	0.849	0.766	79.8	9.5
Hungary	17,472	0.805	0.736	73.9	11.7
Poland	17,803	0.795	0.709	76.0	10.0
Chile	13,561	0.783	0.634	78.8	9.7
Mexico	13,971	0.750	0.593	76.7	8.7
Russian Federation	15,258	0.719	0.636	67.2	8.8
Brazil	10,607	0.699	0.509	72.9	7.2
China	7,258	0.663	0.511	73.5	7.5
Sri Lanka	4,886	0.658	0.546	74.4	8.2
Thailand	8,000	0.654	0.516	69.3	6.6
South Africa	9,812	0.597	0.411	52.0	8.2
India	3,337	0.519	0.365	64.4	4.4
Kenya	1,627	0.470	0.320	55.6	7.0
Bangladesh	1,587	0.469	0.331	66.9	4.8
Nigeria	2,156	0.423	0.246	48.4	5.0
Côte d'Ivoire	1,624	0.397	0.254	58.4	3.3
Ethiopia	992	0.328	0.216	56.1	1.5
Sierra Leone	808	0.317	0.193	48.2	2.9
Niger	675	0.261	0.173	52.5	1.4
Zimbabwe	176	0.140	0.098	47.0	7.2

Note: IHDI: Inequality-adjusted HDI (a new measure introduced into 2010 Human Development Report)

Uneven progress but deep inequalities

• The world average HDI rose to 0.68 in 2010 from 0.57 in 1990, continuing the upward trend from 1970, when it stood at 0.48
• The fastest progress has been in East Asia & the Pacific, followed by South Asia and Arab States.
• All but 3 of the 135 countries have a higher level of human development today than in 1970
• The exceptions are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe
• From 1970 to 2010 real per capita income in developed countries increased 2.3 percent a year on average, compared with 1.5 percent for developing countries
• The real average income of people in 13 countries in the bottom quarter of today’s world income distribution is lower than in 1970

Limitations of the Human Development Index

The HDI notably fails to take account of qualitative factors, such as cultural identity and political freedoms (human security, gender opportunities and human rights for example).

Many argue that the HDI should become more human-centred and expanded to include more dimensions, ranging from gender equity to environmental biodiversity

The GNP per capita figure – and consequently the HDI figure – takes no account of income distribution. If income is unevenly distributed, then GNP per capita will be an inaccurate measure of the monetary well-being of the people. Inequitable development is not human development.

PPP values change very quickly and are likely to be inaccurate or misleading

The 2010 edition of the Human Development Report marked the launch of a new Inequality-adjusted HDIand also a Gender Inequality Index and a Multidimensional Poverty Index

Inequality HDI - The average loss in the HDI due to inequality is about 23 percent—that is, adjusted for inequality, the global HDI of 0.682 in 2011 would fall to 0.525.

Key point: the HDI is intended to allow economists to draw broad conclusions about which countries enjoyrelatively high standards of living, and which are, by comparison, under-developed.

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IGCSE,Economic Development - Millennium Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day

• Income share held by lowest 20 percent
• Malnutrition prevalence, weight for age (percent of children under 5)
• Poverty headcount ratio at $1.25 a day (PPP) (percent of population) - Four out of every five people living in extreme poverty will live in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
• Prevalence of undernourishment (percent of population)

% of population living on less than $1.25 a day	1990	2008
Sub-Saharan Africa	56	47
Southern Asia (including India)	52	26
South-Eastern Asia	45	17
China	60	13
Latin America and the Caribbean	12	6
Developing regions (excluding China)	41	28

There has been clear progress in reducing the scale of extreme poverty The proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 47 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent in 2008—a reduction from over 2 billion to less than 1.4 billion. That said the rate of extreme poverty reduction has slowed down because of the impact of the global recession post 2008 and the effects of high world food and energy prices. By 2015, well over one billion people will live in extreme poverty; 4/5ths of these people will live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.

Those countries that have made most rapid progress towards the first of the MDGs—to halve those living in extreme poverty by 2015—have been fast growing countries of East Asia, most notably India, China and Vietnam. The proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 43.1% in 1990 to 22.2% in 2008

To fight extreme poverty the World Bank in 2012 reported that five key areas need to be given extra focus.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Target: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. More than half of all out-of-school children are in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Literacy rate, youth total (percent of people ages 15–24)
• Primary completion rate, total (percent of relevant age group)
• School enrolment, primary (percent net)

Progress has been made in lifting school enrolment rates for primary and secondary education although the pace of improvement has slowed in recent years. In developing regions, the enrolment rate for children of primary school age rose from 82 to 90 per cent between 1999 and 2010.

There was a steep rise for Sub-Saharan Africa with enrolment rates jumping from 58% to 78% despite a rise in the size of the primary school age population. 70% of pupils completed their primary education but more progress is needed to address the percentage of girls who are out of school – this links to the MDG goal which focuses on gender opportunities. Only six African countries recorded primary completion rates of 90 percent and above in 2009.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Target: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people

Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

• Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament (percent) - now there are 8,716 women parliamentarians globally, which is 19.25% of the total number of MPs
• Ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education (percent) - The ratio between the enrolment rate of girls and that of boys grew from 91 in 1999 to 97 in 2010 for all developing regions
• Ratio of young literate females to males (percent ages 15–24)
• Share of women employed in the non-agricultural sector

Gender parity index for enrolment in different stages of education (Data is for 2010), Girls per 100 boys	Developed Regions	Developing Regions
Primary Education	99	97
Secondary Education	99	96
Tertiary Education	120	98

Factors affecting gender disparities in secondary school enrolment rates

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Target: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

• Immunization, measles (percent of children ages 12–23 months)
• Mortality rate, neonatal (death in first month after birth, per 1,000 live births)
• Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births)
• Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000)

Under-five mortality rate, 1990 and 2010 (Deaths per 1,000 live births)	1990	2010
Sub-Saharan Africa	174	121
Southern Asia	117	66
South-Eastern Asia	71	32
Latin America and the Caribbean	54	23
Developed regions	15	7
Developing regions	97	63

There has been a 35 per cent drop in child mortality rates and despite population growth, the number of under-five deaths worldwide fell from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010. Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a 2.4% annual fall. Despite this progress there are several areas of crucial concern:

• Death rates in the first month after birth have risen in the last ten years
• There are big disparities in infant survival rates between rich and poor households and between families where the mother has an education and where she does not
• Nearly one in five children under age five in the developing world is underweight
• In the world's poorest countries every 2 minutes a woman dies from complications of childbirth

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Target: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

• Births attended by skilled health staff (percent of total)
• Maternal mortality ratio (modelled estimate, per 100,000 live births)

Maternal mortality, (Maternal deaths per 100 000 live births, women aged 15-49)	1990	2010
Sub-Saharan Africa	850	500
Southern Asia	590	220
South-Eastern Asia	410	150
The Caribbean	290	190
Latin America	130	72
Developed regions	26	16
Developing regions	440	240

In 2010, 32 women per hour died as a result of giving birth. The global burden of maternal death has fallen sharply with a reduction of 47 per cent since 1990 – but the maternal mortality ration in developing regions was still 15 times higher than in developed regions. One in ten maternal deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa was attributed to the effects of HIV-aids. There has been a ten per cent rise over twenty years in the percentage of birth deliveries attended by skilled doctors, nurses or mid-wives (65% in 2010) but this figure drops to less than half in Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Factors behind improving maternal health outcomes:

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

Target: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

• Contraceptive prevalence (percent of women ages 15–24)
• Incidence of tuberculosis (per 100,000 people)
• Prevalence of HIV, female (percent ages 15–24), total (percent of population ages 15–49)

HIV / AIDS

• At the end of 2010, 6.5 million people were receiving antiretroviral therapy for HIV or AIDS in developing regions. The incidence of new HIV infections per year per 100 people aged 15-49 in 2010 was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (0.41) and Southern Africa (1.08). For developing regions the incidence of HIV has fallen from 0.09 in 2001 to 0.07in 2010.
• Limited progress has been made in reducing new HIV infections, but there is better news on increasing life expectancy because of the wider availability and lower cost of using life-saving antiretroviral therapy. The price of antiretroviral treatment has fallen in the past decade: from $10k per person per year in 2000 to $100 in 2011. Young people aged between 15-24 years account for 40% of all new adult HIV infections. Infection rates in young women 15–24 years old are twice as high as among men of the same age

Malaria

An estimated 655,000 malaria deaths occurred in 2010, of which 91 per cent were in Africa and 86 per cent were children under 5 years of age. Major progress has been made in cutting malaria partly due to increased international funding and the wider adoption of insecticide-treated ben nets. There are worries however that resistance levels to some malaria drugs may be weakening.

Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Target: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources

• CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita), GDP per unit of energy use
• Forest area (percent of land area), Nationally protected areas (percent of total land area)
• Increase resilience to the effects of climate change - Studies show that the poor of the world are exposed to much greater risk from natural hazards
• Improved water source (percent of population with access) - the proportion of people using an improved water source rising from 76 per cent in 1990 to 89 per cent in 2010.
• Improve sanitation - nearly half of the population in developing regions—2.5 billion—still lacks access to improved sanitation facilities at the end of 2011

One of the pressing issues with this goal is the target to improve access to clean water and sanitation:

• Eleven per cent of the global population—783 million people—remains without access to an improved source of drinking water and, at the current pace, 605 million people will still lack coverage in 2015. Rural water shortages continue to stay well above that for urban residents
• The MDG target on sanitation is unlikely to be met by 2015. Sanitation coverage increased from 36 per cent in 1990 to 56 per cent in 2010 in the developing regions as a whole. But over 2.5 billion people in developing countries still do not have access to improved sanitation facilities. 15% of the global population have no sanitation facilities at all.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Aid per capita (current US$)
• Telephone lines (per 100 people), mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)
• Internet users (per 100 people), personal computers (per 1,000 people)
• Unemployment, youth total (percent of total labour force ages 15–24)

There are separate chapters on the economics of aid, telecommunications and development and the economics of unemployment in developing countries.

Elephant attack in kerala

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Modi's Japan visit 2014

Modi's Japan visit 2014: Prime Minister describes Japan trip as very successful

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(PM hopes India's infrastructure…)

TOKYO: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today termed hisJapan trip as "very successful" and hoped that India's infrastructure will improve and the country will become clean with the help of $35 billion promised by Japan over five years, the highest ever amount ever.

Winding up his official programme on the penultimate day of his five-day visit, Modi expressed gratitude to Japan for reposing "trust" in India and demonstrating its friendship with a quip "yeh fevicol se be zyada mazboot jod hai (this bond is stronger than that of fevicol)".

This visit has been very successful," Modi said at the Indian community reception hosted in his honour here.

"There has been talk about billions and millions. But there has never been talk of trillions," he said, referring to 3.5 trillion Yen ($35 billion or 2,10,000 crore) promised by Japan to India through public and private fundingover the five years for various works, including building of smart cities and cleanup of the Ganga river.

"This is a big achievement. My biggest happiness is that Japan trusted us," he said at his last official programme after a hectic day of events and meetings.

Talking in the context of trust, he referred to Japan's decision yesterday to lift ban on six Indian entities, including HAL. The ban had been imposed in the aftermath of 1998 nuclear tests.

Referring to signing of an MoU under which Varanasi will be cleaned up and developed learning from the experience of Japanese 'smart city' Kyoto, Modi said, "we can learn from each other".