Development economics

Table of Contents

1. Topic pack - Development economics - introduction
2. 4.1 Economic development (notes)
3. 4.1 Economic development (questions)
4. 4.2 Measuring Economic Development (notes)
5. 4.2 Measuring development (questions)
6. 4.3 The role of domestic factors in economic development (notes)
7. 4.3 The role of domestic factors in economic development (questions)
8. 4.4 The role of international trade (notes)
9. 4.4 The role of international trade (questions)
10. 4.5 The role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) (notes)
11. 4.5 The role of foreign direct investment (questions)
12. 4.6 The role of foreign aid and multilaterial development assistance (notes)
13. 4.6 The role of foreign aid and multilateral development assistance (questions)
14. 4.7 The role of international debt (notes)
15. 4.7 The role of international debt (questions)
16. 4.8 The balance between markets and intervention (notes)
    1. Balance between markets & intervention (case studies)
    2. Strengths and weaknesses of market oriented policies
    3. Case study (1)
    4. Case study (2)
    5. Case study (3)
    6. Case study (4)
    7. Case study (5)
    8. Commodity agreements: intervening in the markets
    9. Cartel arrangements
    10. Case study (6)
    11. Case study (7)
    12. Case study (8)
    13. Case study (9)
    14. Harrod-Domar Growth Model
    15. Structural Change Model
    16. Dual Sector Model
17. 4.8 The balance between markets and intervention (questions)
18. Print View

Balance between markets & intervention Introduction (case studies)

This section does not involve any new knowledge (that's the good news!), but draws instead upon all the other sections of the economics syllabus (not such bad news!). This is what you will need to do in order to answer the Data Response exam questions you will soon face.

In academic-speak, this is known as 'synoptic' - where assessment tests your understanding of the connections between the different elements of the syllabus content and requires you to demonstrate understanding of the inter-relatedness of different economic issues, theories, concepts and institutions.

Ultimately, the aim of this section is to build on your understanding of the often conflicting strategies of a market orientated and interventionist approaches to achieving economic growth and development. You will be encouraged to evaluate, to critique and to draw conclusions about preferred strategy options in different contexts. This will require you to compare and contrast the two approaches, by exploring their strengths and weakness in particular circumstances.

To improve these skills you must attempt past paper questions

Market-oriented and interventionist strategies - an evaluation of these in terms of achieving growth and/or development really could be all embracing! Some possible sections to review include:

• Section 1.1 - rationing systems, free market versus mixed versus centrally planned economies (advantages/disadvantages of different forms of resource allocation) - markets/competition, functions of price in resource allocation (the role of markets) - productive and allocative efficiency (benefits of market oriented strategies)
• Section 1.2- elasticity
• Section 1.3 -government intervention / response (problems of market oriented strategies/need for government intervention)
• Section 1.4 - market failure
• Section 2.3 - unemployment/inflation as consequences of market oriented/interventionist strategies
• Section 2.3- income distribution
• Section 2.4 -fiscal policy (interventionist)
• Section 2.5 Monetary policy (interventionist),
• Section 2.6 Market oriented supply-side policies and interventionist supply side policies
• Section 3.1 - free trade (market oriented), protectionism (interventionist)
• Section 3.2 and 3.3 - exchange rates, balance of payments problems and terms of trade (impact of market-led/interventionist strategies on these?)
• Section 3.4 - globalisation (market oriented), forms of economic integration (combination of market-oriented and interventionist)
• Section 4.1,4.3 - barriers to economic growth and/or development (particularly the sections on international trade and international financial barriers)
• Section 4.4, 4.6 and 4.7 - growth and development strategies (particularly the sections on types of aid, export-led growth/outward-oriented strategies (market oriented), import substitution/inward-oriented strategies (interventionist) and foreign direct investment)

In this section, as with section 4.3, we will use a series of video clips, newspaper articles and case studies to illustrate some of the policies associated with these two strategies and use these to assist evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses.

The section will end with a series of questions. We suggest that you look at the questions on market oriented and interventionist strategies. Try in each case to formulate a plan of how you would tackle them using bullet points.

If you were writing an essay, or an answer to the final part of a data response question, each bullet should represent a paragraph and/or relevant diagram, which you would use to fully expand upon each of the points in your list. Examiners are very keen on structure and the use of paragraphs.

These questions are extremely open-ended, so there are no right or wrong answers as such (though they must have appropriate economic theory) - follow the links in each case for a selection of points you might have raised.