[Joseph_E._Stiglitz,_Carl_E._Walsh]_Economics(Bookos.org) (1)

Internet Connection
THE WORLD BANK’S DEVELOPMENT GOALS
The World Bank has established goals for reducing poverty, improving
education, reducing child mortality, and achieving other
indicators of economic development and improved standards
of living. They are listed at www.developmentgoals.org.
First, several countries have moved from the circle of LDCs to the ranks of
middle-income countries. These are referred to collectively as newly industrialized
countries, or NICs for short. Those with success stories include the “gang of
four”: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In the thirty years after
the devastating Korean War, for instance, South Korea moved from being a backward
country to a major producer—not just of simple products such as textiles
but of automobiles (the Hyundai) and computers, whose production requires a
reasonably high level of technological expertise. Even more impressive, Japan has
moved from the category of middle-income country to become one of the most
prosperous nations in the world. But the success stories are not limited to East
Asia: Botswana, while today suffering greatly from AIDS, has managed to have
sustained growth of more than 8 percent annually for thirty years, among the most
impressive records anywhere in the world. India, which for decades after independence
hardly seemed to grow, has experienced sustained growth of more than
5 percent for a decade.
Second, there have been pockets of remarkable progress within the LDCs.
In the early 1960s, agricultural research centers around the world (funded largely
by the Rockefeller Foundation) developed new kinds of seeds, which under proper
conditions enormously increase yields per acre. The introduction and dissemination
of these new seeds—accompanied by far-reaching improvements in agricultural
practices, known as the green revolution—led to huge increases in output.
India, for example, finally managed to produce enough food to feed its burgeoning
population and now sometimes exports wheat to other countries.
Third, even the grim statistics for life expectancy—62 years in Bangladesh and
46 years in sub-Saharan Africa (compared to 78 years in the United States, as
noted above)—represent improvements for many countries. But these improvements
have a darker side in some countries: a population explosion reminiscent
of the Malthusian nightmare. Thomas Malthus envisioned a world in which population
growth outpaced increases in the food supply. In Kenya during the early
1980s, for instance, improved health conditions enabled the population to grow at
4.1 percent a year, a remarkable rate at which the population would double every
seventeen years, while output increased at only 1.9 percent a year. Increases
in output do nothing to improve per capita income when the population grows
even faster.
796 ∂ CHAPTER 36 DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITION