Some good development news… really… maybe?
by Benjamin on March 20, 2009
It seems that there is bad news around every corner, but there is a shimmer of light if one has a look at some development statistics for the last 30 years. At least the ones presented by William Easterly seem to indicate some real progress over the last many years:
Really?
This seems to indicate two things: development economists know what they are doing and life, globally, has been getting better over the last thirty years: To the former Easterly responds “One group that doesn’t deserve much credit is “development experts,” because there is a terrible crisis of confidence in development economics now, where we all freely confess we don’t really know what to advise governments on how to speed up development.” … The question then remains whether the beautifully logged series are representative of real change or just creative statistics… Any thoughts?
Tags: clean water, data, Development, GDP, infant mortality, poverty line
The beautifully logged series seems like it makes good sense and shows good progress, although per capita income is irrelevant. The statistic does not take into consideration economic expenses such as rent or labor time. In other words, you may make 1.5x more, but it costs 2x more to live.
Conversely, it does not take into consideration free time; as such true net profits of our land and labor have decreased over the last 30 years. For it is only free time that makes for human innovation. India and China are excellent examples of real progress by such statistical standards above; yet lower and lower amounts of free time for innovation due to increases in their economic expense inputs of rent and energy.