Economic Indicators Essay

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Development Economics Web Guide, Unit 5B 4 Issue 1 – May 2003 Authorised by Peter Goff Indicators of development in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America Absolute and relative poverty. Differences between developing countries. Compare and contrast GDP per capita and other measures of economic and social development, e.g. life expectancy, literacy rates, the proportion of population employed in agriculture. Understand the distinction between these terms. Compare how the record of economic development differs in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America and explain reasons for these differences. Understand the limitations of national income statistics as indicators of development. Explain the inter-relationships between these indicators. Understand how there are differences in countries both between and within the three continents and a consideration of these differences. Indicators of Economic Development Introduction The specification refers to two categories of country, ‘developed’ and ‘developing’. A variety of economic and social indicators can be used to classify countries in this way. However, some of these are more reliable than others. Further classifications are possible between countries within the ‘developing’ category – for example, strong differences by region emerge: Africa, South Asia, East Asia and Latin America have rather different sets of characteristics. However, it is also true that countries within each of these regions differ widely. Some Important Indicators A very wide variety of indicators can be used to characterise the difference between developed and developing countries. Only a small selection is considered here. The data reported below comes from the United Nations Human Development Report for 2001. 1 GDP per capita GDP per capita is the total value of (final

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