Economic Development

关于经济发展的政策

Economic Development

1. Which are the major structural changes identified by development economists and economic historians that are believed to be characteristic of successful development processes? Do you think these structural changes will happen naturally and automatically in all societies(i.e. it is just a matter of time before they will spontaneously happen)? If your answer is yes, justify your belief. If you think that those changes can only be brought about( or can be significantly sped up) through certain policies that are implemented by the state, what do you think some of these policies could be and why?
There are five major structural changes during the process of economic development :
a. Increase in industrialization, which means an increasing share of a nation’s output and labor force involved in industrial, especially manufacturing, activities and  services become increasingly important too as an economy matures even further.
b. Decrease in agriculture. Parallel to the expansion of the industrial sector of the economy is a decline in the share of agricultural output in total output. This also means a reduction in the share of the total labor force employed in agriculture and a decrease in the share of the rural population within the total population.
c. Changing trade patterns. Primary exports decrease—agriculture and fishing products, unprocessed mining and other extractive minerals, and forestry products are much less than manufactured goods and services.
d. Increased application of human capital and knowledge to production.
Economic growth and development require more investment and attention in human capital and knowledge in order to  increases the productivity of labor in all sectors of the economy.
e. Undertaking essential institutional change. Economic growth and development require fundamental institutional change. New organizations gain added importance as an economy modernizes. The role of the central government must change to incubate private initiatives, and sometimes to fill gaps when the private sector lacks initiative. Physical infrastructure such as roads, ports, communications, the provision of electricity, water, and other essential services must be improved, and the state typically must play a central role in these areas, particularly during early stages of structural transformation.
These structural changes won’t happen naturally in all societies. If so, we can judge a country by its years of history-the longer it exists, the more industrialized it will be. But it is apparently wrong. So we can conclude that these changes won’t spontaneously happen.
Some measures that may speed up the structural changes:
a. Increase the level and efficiency of physical infrastructure, laying a solid foundation of further development.
b. Establish an effective and developed educational system, cultivating the talented persons that will make contribution to the economic development
c. Optimized the domestic market system and political climate, such as undertaking policies on tax and encouraging foreign investment, thus increasing  the availability of foreign aid and investment to help to boost domestic economic development
d. Reform some unreasonable existing rules and regulations, identify and undertake those that may foment the economic development.

2. On pp. 24-25 in ch. 1 of the book by Cypher, the author discusses the major internal and external barriers to change and development. How might these barriers modify your answer to the latter part of the previous question (i.e. relating to whether structural changes will take place automatically or they have to be engendered through policies) and why?
The major internal and external barriers to development further justify my answer to the question that whether the structural changes will happen automatically. Different barriers lead to different delay in economic development, they won’t vanish automatically, the process of development won’t be steadily moving forward. But I have to modify my answer to the last question of the Question 1. We should identify the major and real barriers existing in economic development and then take some specific and effective measures to overcome them. This is the most effective way to speed up changes.

3. Present four types of economic/social data to indicate whether development has taken place in your country of study over the last three decades or so. Whatever development indicators you choose to refer to, provide some justifications for your choice. Also, it is extremely important for you to document the sources of your data. (You may be able to find some such indicators presented in the reference items that you will be looking up in question 4 of this assignment. Of course, you can always fall back on the World Bank's World Development Report or the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report for such data.)
a. The GDP of Japan from 1985 to 2014 data shows Japanese economy has increased by 400%( source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp)
 
b. The per capita income of Japan from 1985 to 2014 shows that people’s income and living standard has been greatly increased. (source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?page=5)
current US$ Per Capita Income of Japan
1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
11,465.70 16,882.30 20,355.60 24,592.80 24,505.80
2010 2011 2012 2013
43,117.80 46,203.70 46,679.30 38,633.70
c. The component ratios of foreign trade by commodity shows the change of Japan’s trade pattern.

 

d. The employed persons and gross domestic product of three sectors in Japan shows the changes in in dustrial structure.
 source: http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c0117.htm

4. Look up at least five reference items that you can access physically or digitally through the Penrose Library for the country that you are going to write about in your term-paper. These can include reference books, scholarly journal articles, chapters in books, and/or working papers published by international organizations/agencies, but Not more than two items from the internet(other than e-books that are reference books and/or articles from e-journals that are professional journals). Compile a list of these reference items. (Any item from the internet that is not form an academic journal has to be downloaded so that a hard copy of it can be submitted when you turn in your term-paper on May 15.)
a. Statistical Handbook of Japan
b. Carl Mosk, Japanese Economic Development: Markets, Norms, Structures, 
c. Carl Mosk, Japanese Industrialization and Economic Growth 
d. Dick Beason and Dennis Patterson, The Japan That Never Was: Explaining the Rise and Decline of a Misunderstood Country
e. Bai Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma: The Institutional Origins of Prosperity and Stagnation Aug 27, 2001
5. Professor Baran(1957) observes that "the effects of Western European capitalist penetration of the outside world... depended on the exact nature of that penetration...[and] on the stage of development reached by the societies that were exposed to the foreign contacts." How does he apply this observation to distinguish between the processes of Western Europe's entrance into North America, Australia, and New Zealand on the one hand, and its penetration into Asia and Africa on the other? And regarding Asia and Africa, what does he consider to be the general effects of this entrance? Illustrate your answer with reference to passages from his reading.

From paragraph 2 and 3 on page 130 of Paradigm in Economic Development , we know that: when Western Europeans enter North America , Australia and New Zealand, they  entered complete societal vacua, and settled in these countries establishing themselves as their permanent residents with "capitalism in their bones" and meeting no resistance -they succeeded in a short time in establishing on virtually virgin (and exceptionally fertile) soil just like entering an indigenous society of their own. 
But when Western European settlers faced with Asian and African countries with rich and ancient cultures, still in the embryonic state of capitalist development and where the existing social organizations were primitive and tribal, they rapidly determined to extract the largest possible gains from the host countries, and to take  their loot home. Thus they engaged in outright plunder or in plunder thinly veiled as trade, seizing and removing tremendous wealth from these countries.