Development Economics

Definition of Development[]

Development is the act on improving something (in economics case: the economy of a country) through expanding, enlarging, or refining specific aspects. Development refers to changes that improve standard of living and/or efficiency in a country, which hopefully bring a country from poor and impoverished to rich and happy. These changes often inculde: improved infrastructure, advances in healthcare, improving the government, improvements in education, improvements to the average standards of living, etc. Development is qualitative, where as growth is quantitative.

Development opposed to Growth:[]

A plant transitions from building luxury cars to building ambulances, which enables healthcare to be provided more easily. This is an example of development because ambulances help the people more than a luxury cars would. If the plant were to somehow increase their output, that would also be growth because it would cause GDP to go up, but that would be a growth in output rather than in helping people per unit relative to a different good.

In order to become developed, the country must become more competitive in the international market. When the country begins to export more secondary and tertiary goods than primary goods, the country's GDP increases. It is very hard for a country to become developed due to several limiting factors. This can lead to the poverty cycle, which is extremly hard to get out of. A big thing that happens when a country is developed is that the standard of living and wealth tends to equal out more and become more even.