How does Owen Barder define development? How does he extend Amartya Sen’s definition to include the idea of complexity? In this ted talk, Owen Barder defines development with economic growth. When he talks about Amartya Sen, he brings out the idea that development is enlarging people’s freedom. In that idea, a well developed society, educational system and health insurance gives people more opportunity and ability to choose what they want to do and apply it. More than that, in Barder’s statement, the most significant part of development is focused on the economic and social system. This thesis is not hard to understand. Since it can be the most effective way to improve people’s living situation and enable them to fulfill their needs. Beyond that, they will have more freedom to do things.
Barder compared the economic growth of South Korea and Ghana between 1960 and 2010. Why did he make this comparison? What did this comparison demonstrate when used as the basis to validate economic models? This comparison is very typical. Since both countries were almost on the same level in 1960. However, there is a rapid increase in South Korea around 1974. So it is a very typical example to see what kind of factor makes this difference in two countries. Although the average income does not represent all, the complete transformation in lives actually results in this situation on the chart. When the lives of people improve, the current will improve as well.
What was the toaster project? What did Thomas Thwaites attempt to do? Was he successful? What is the significance of this example in the context of complexity? Thomas brought a toaster and found out it is actually quite complicated. The toaster is combined by several different parts and made from various materials. So he was trying to make his own toaster completely by himself. However, it was not very successful. This project shows an idea that even a toaster that is simple and cheap as that requires a huge amount of technologies and parts. However, because of the development of economics, it becomes much easier to make a toaster. This project unveils a statement that when talking about development, people should not simply think about increasing output for individuals. The progress made by the whole system is much more significant and effective.
What was the Harrod Domar growth model? What are the two fundamental variables in this model? Who was Walter Rostow and what was the impact of his work on development? The Harrod Domar growth model is developed by Walter Rostow, an American economist, professor and political theorist, and focused on the stages of economic growth. He finds out that economic development is like a virtuous circle. Even a tinny investment per cent of national income can trigger it and facilitate self sustained growth. Two fundamental variables are capital and savings. This model has a huge influence on the economy. It enables people to calculate the amount of foreign aid which used to fill the gap between investment and savings.
What was the Robert Solow model? How did it address the limitations of the Harrod-Domar model? Was this model successful at predicting economic growth? The Robert Solow model is focused on long term economic growth. It deeply analyzes and explains it by change in capital and labour. This model is based on neoclassical growth theory. Compared with the Harrod-Domar model, it fits data better which addresses the limitation of the previous one. However, considering the example of poor countries such as Africa, this model fails to explain the difference between different wealth level nations because in this idea, it believes technological change is an unexplainable component.
What was the Ajaokuta Steel works? How did it illustrate the transition from a focus on policies to institutions? How did Acemoglu & Robinson book Why Nations Fail address governance and politics? How is their argument a response to the previously failed idea regarding engineering prosperity by providing the correct economic advice? (edited) The Ajaokuta Steel works is one of the largest investments in worldwide steel production in NIgeria. But because of the endemic corruption and poor management, it is not considered into its national income. In Acemoglu & Robsinson’s book Why Nations Fail, it gives an idea that poor countries are poor because of the rulers. Son back to the Ajaokuta Steel works, since the politics of a nation will greatly affect its institutions. People can see that those main problems are more likely to be associated with the inner system of a nation and the rulers are in a significant position of that.
According to Barder, how successful have economic models been at describing and predicting growth over the past 50 years?
In the past 50 years, the speed of development has been the fastest. Many things change so rapidly that the traditional models are hard to explain. However, after looking at those missing ingredients, many of these factors are not from outside but more likely to be endogenous.
What was the significance of Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction? How does it relate to firms and institutions? What is co-evolution and why is it significant? Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction refers to the innovation mechanism through the way new production units replace outdated ones. It is very significant since it is a progress of pursuing effectiveness. For firms, a new one always fits today’s environment better. And as well as institutions. Co-evolution adapting changes together as a greater and much complicated system. It is a very effective way of development since all changes are reasons to each other. This way, development can be faster and much more sustainable.
What is a complex adaptive system? What are some of its important features? A complex adaptive system refers to a complex nonlinear system. For this kind of system, it is hard to predict in detail, but people can make broad predictions about the whole system. It has emergent properties and tends to have greater complexity. Based on this idea, it will not go toward an equilibrium. Instead, the whole system will keep moving.
Who was Haile Sellasie? What is the significance of Kapuscinski’s book The Emperor? How did Ethiopia exemplify the suppression of emergent systemic change? Do you agree with this analysis? Haile Sellasie was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. In Kapuscinski’s book The Emperor, it gives a compelling account of internal logic that existed by extracting value from the population and suppressing any effort to move towards more inclusive institutions. And it brings significant points to the democracy system and its impact on society and politics. I agree with this analysis since it is not a simple point about the value of democracy.
Why does Barder recommend resisting engineering as a policy implication? What did he mean by iso-morphic mimicry? Because instead of replacing evolutionary processes, the change in it as a whole is almost impossible to predict. And the evolutionary process usually performs design in specific environments. The iso-morphic mimicry means building institutions and processes in weak states which like those found in functional states.
What did Barder mean by “resist fatalism”? Who was Norman Borlaug and what is the green revolution? Resist fatalism indicates that people should not accept whatever outcome of the revolutional progress. Norman Borlaug is a man who brings the Green Revolution by intervening in the evolution process in order to get a higher yield by crossbreeding. His Green Revolution saves a huge amount of people’s lives from starving.
Barder also recommended to promote innovation, embrace creative destruction and shape development. What did he mean by these recommendations? Promote innovation refers to the idea that people are more likely to take risks and create new things when they have an ensured environment. To embrace creative destruction, it is for sure there will be some failures. So the incorporating of these becomes more significant for sustainability. Last but not least, for shape development, people should never ignore the pressure brought by the value and goal of the whole society.
Who was Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and what was his insight about economic systems and evolution? Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen is a Romanian mathematician, statistician and economist. He holds the idea that humans should stop pursuing the development of the economic system. Instead of GDP, people should focus more on social well being. Human’s actions now create a great consumption of the world. He called this idea degrowth which emphasizes more on happiness, calmness, and so on.