Back in Unit 2, I made the point that it’s the economic problem that gives rise to society’s need to have an organized economic system: In very broad terms, we (both as individuals and as a society), have to make four types of decisions over and over and over all the time. These four decisions… Read More »
Since I’m late getting the directions and assignments up for Unit 5, I’ll just go ahead and combine Unit 5 and 6. For Unit 5 and 6, I want you to do the following: You need to read: Read and listen/watch as needed to Jim’s Posts for Unit 5 and 6; post to your own… Read More »
A couple days ago, I posted about Hans Rosling and the Gapminder.org project. One of Rosling’s weapons to help poor nations and poor people is hard data. He uses it to change the widespread ignorance and myths about population, birth rates, development, health, etc. He’s a better showman than I am writer, so I’ll let… Read More »
Let’s shift our attention away from the so-called “developing nations” where the average person is poor, to the poor of the developed and emerging nations. In developing nations, the central issue is how to raise the general level of productivity of the economic system. The issue is a lack of development and industrialization. Put simply,… Read More »
As mentioned in a previous post, development economist Paul Collier coined the term Bottom Billion to describe the poor trapped in the poorest nations – the nations we often call “developing nations”. Collier has a darker, more pessimistic view of the prospects for the Bottom Billion than Hans Rosling does. Rosling sees the Bottom Billion… Read More »
I have a real soft spot in my heart for Hans Rosling. It’s for 3 big reasons. First, he’s an empiricist. He always asks what the data really say. And then he adjusts his thinking to the facts, not the other way around. Second, he’s helped create some really, really cool software and webtools. Like… Read More »
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It is a 2007 book by Professor Paul Collier exploring the reason why impoverished countries fail to progress despite international aid and support. In the book Collier argues that there are many countries whose residents have experienced little, if any,… Read More »
In previous units we’ve focused on economic growth, wealth, incomes, and development. But in doing that we’ve focused on what we could call the winners and the on-their-way-to-winning. In this unit we’re going to turn our attention to the less fortunate – the poor. In shifting our attention, we need to realize that there’s two… Read More »
Jim’s Note: Culture oftentimes gets short attention in economics, yet it’s an enormously powerful factor in determining the success, development, or failure of economies. In the this video, Tarun Khanna looks at China and India. These two countries are neighbors. They are the two most populous countries in the world. Both are rapidly developing and… Read More »
Rationale & Objective Through this course, you are dealing with quite a few new concepts, some theories, new terms, and a fair amount of history of different countries and economic systems. I’ve only selected one, free, relatively short book as a required text – the Maddison book. One of the reasons I have not selected… Read More »