政治大學外交所選修課程

課程名稱：已開發國家經濟發展
Economic Development of Develope
d Countries

授課內容： Economics, Institutions, a

nd Development: A Global Perspecti
ve
日期： 2003 年 9 月 26 日
How the Other Three-Quarters Live

 More than three-fourths of the earth’s 6

billion people, are much less fortunate.
 An examination of these global differences
in living standards is revealing.
 A typical “extended“ family in rural Asia.
 City situated along the coast of South
America.
 The eastern part of Africa.
 Theirs is a subsistence economy.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 This first fleeting glimpse at lift in
different parts of our planet is
sufficient to raise various questions.
 Why does affluence coexist with dire
poverty not only across different
continents but also within the same
country or even the same city?
 Can traditional, low-productivity,
subsistence societies be transformed
into modern, high-productivity,
high-income nations?
政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰
 To what extent are the development
aspirations of poor nations helped or
hindered by the economic activities
of rich nation?
 By what process and under what
conditions do rural subsistence
farmers in the remote regions of
Nigeria, Brazil, or the Philippines
evolve into successful commercial
farmers?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 These and many other questions
concerning international and
national differences in standards of
living, in areas including health and
nutrition, education, employment,
population growth, and life
expectancies, might be posed on the
basis of even this very superficial
look at lift around the world.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 To help students obtain a better
understanding of the Third World
nations.
 What happens to the health and economic
welfare of the poor rural family and many
others in Southeast Asia, Africa, the
Middle East, or Latin America will in one
way or another, directly, affect the health
and economic welfare of families in
Europe and North America, and vice
versa.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

Economics and Development Studies
 The problems and processes of economic
development in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America has emerged only over the past
five decades.
 Development economics often draws on
relevant principles and concepts from
other branches of economics in either a
standard or modified form.
 Third World nations with varying
ideological orientations, diverse cultural
backgrounds, and very complex yet similar
economic problems that usually demand
new ideas and novel approaches.
政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰
 Traditional neoclassical economics
deals with an advanced capitalist
world of perfect markets; consumer
sovereignty; automatic price
adjustments; decisions made on the
basis of marginal, private-profit, and
utility calculation; and equilibrium
outcomes in all product and
resource markets.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Political economy
Political economy is concerned with
the relationship between politics and
economics, with a special emphasis
on the role of power in economic
decision making.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Development economics
Development economics has an even greater sco
pe. In the less developed countries (LDCs),
most commodity and resource markets are highl
y imperfect, consumers and producers have limit
ed information, major structural changes are taki
ng place in both the society and economy, and di
sequilibrium situations often prevail, economics c
alculations are dominated by political and social
priorities. At the individual level, family, clan, reli
gion, or tribal considerations may take preceden
ce over private, self-interested utility or profit-m
aximizing calculations.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 There are few, if any, truly universal principles
or“ laws” of economics governing economic
relationships that are immutable at all times and
in all places. For example, increased consumer
demand tends to elicit a greater quantity
supplied.
 Today development economics is a field on the
crest of a breaking wave with new theories and
new data continuously emerging. The ultimate
purpose of development economics, however,
remains constants: to help us better understand
Third World economics in order to help improve
the material lives of three-quarters of the global
population.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

Why Study Development Economics?
Some Critical Questions

 What is the real meaning of development,

and how can different economic concepts
and theories contribute to a better
understanding of the development
process?
 What are the sources of national and
international economic growth? Who
benefits from such growth and why? Why
so some countries make rapid progress
toward development while many others
remain poor?
政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰
 Which are the most influential theories of
development and are they compatible? Is
underdevelopment an internally (domestic
ally) or externally (internationally) induce
d phenomenon?
 What can be learned from the historical re
cord of economic progress in the now dev
eloped world? Are the initial conditions si
milar or different for contemporary LDCs f
rom what the developed countries faced o
n the eye of their industrialization?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 1How can improvement in the role
and status of women have an
especially beneficial impact on
development prospects?
 Is rapid population growth
threatening the economic progress
of developing nations? Do large
families make economic sense in an
environment of widespread poverty
and financial insecurity?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Why is there so much unemployment in
the developing world?
 Do Third World educational systems
really promote economic development?
 How can agricultural and rural
development best be promoted?
 What do we mean by “environmentally
sustainable development”?
 Is expanded international trade desirable
from the point of view of the development
of poor nations?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Should exports of primary products such
as agricultural commodities be promoted?
 How did developing nations get into such
serious foreign-debt problems?
 When and under what conditions should
LDC governments adopt a policy of
foreign-exchange control, raise tariffs, or
set quotas? What has been the impact of
International Monetary Fund “stabilization
programs” and World Bank “structural
adjustment”?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Should large and powerful multinational
corporations be encouraged to invest in
the economics of poor nations?
 What is the impact of foreign economic
aid from rich countries?
 Are free markets and economic
privatization the answer to development
problems?
 What is the role of financial and fiscal
policy in promoting development?

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Soveit Union and Eastern Europe.
 What are the most significant issues
facing the developing world in the t
wenty-first century?

The problems of development are in

many cases unique in the modern w
ord.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 The Important Role of Values in
Development Economics
 Unlike the physical sciences, the social science of e
conomics can claim neither scientific laws nor unive
rsal truths.
 Many so-called general economic models are in fact
based on a set of implicit assumptions about huma
n the realities of developing economies.
 Thus the validity of economic analysis and the corr
ectness of economic prescriptions should always be
evaluated in light of the underlying assumptions or
value premises.
 The possibility of a consensus about desirable goals
or appropriate policies os considerably diminished.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

Economies as Social Systems: The Need to
Go Beyond Simple Economics
 Noneconomic factors include attitudes tow
ards life, work, and authority; public and
private bureaucratic, legal, and administr
ative structures; patterns of kinship and r
eligion; cultural traditions; systems of lan
d tenure; the authority and integrity of go
vernment agencies; the degree of popular
participation in development decisions an
d activities; and the flexibility or rigidity o
f economic and social classes.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Resolving problems to achieve developme
nt is a much more complicated task than
some economists would lead us to believe
.
 Many of the failures of development polici
es have occurred precisely because these
noneconomic variables are crucial role: va
lues, attitudes, and institutions, both dom
estic and international, play in the overall
development process.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

What Do We Mean By Development?
 Traditional Economic Measures
Development has traditional meant the capacity of
a national economy, whose initial economic cond
ition has been more or less static for a long time,
to generate and sustain increase in its gross nat
ional product (GNP) at rates of perhaps 5% to
7% or more. A common alternative indexes are r
ates of growth of income per capita or per cap
ita GNP and rates of growth of “real” per capita
GNP; or agriculture’s share declines and manufa
cturing and service industries increases. Supple
mented by casual reference to noneconomic soci
al indicators: gains in literacy, schooling, health
conditions and services, and provision of housing
, for instance.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 The New Economic View of Development
During the 1970s, economic development came
to be redefined in terms of the reduction or
elimination of poverty, inequality, and
unemployment within the context of a growing
economy.
A number of developing countries experienced
relatively high rates of growth of per capita
income during the 1960s and 1970s but showed
little or no improvement or even an actual
decline in employment, equality, and the real
income of the bottom 40%, of their populations.
The situation in the 1980s and early 1990s
worsened further.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 In 1991 World Development Report:
The challenge of development …is to improve the
quality of life. Especially in the world’s poor coun
tries, a better quality of life generally calls for hi
gher incomes- but it involves much more. If enc
ompass as ends in themselves better education,
higher standards of health and nutrition, less po
verty, a cleaner environment, more equality of o
pportunity, greater individual freedom, and a ric
her cultural life.
Development must therefore be conceived of as a
multidimensional process involving major change
s in social structure, popular attitudes, and natio
nal institutions, as well as the acceleration of eco
nomic growth, the reduction of inequality, and th
e eradication of poverty.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

Three Core Value of Development

 Development as the sustained elevation

of an entire society and social system
toward a “better” or “more humane life?”
These core values － sustenance, self-
esteem, and freedom － represent
common goals sought by all individuals
and societies.

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰

 Sustenance: The Ability to Meet
Basic Needs
 Self-Esteem: To Be a Person
 Freedom from Servitude: To Be
Able to Choose

政治大學 外交所選修課程 黃智聰