Growth and Development Visuals

I love using visuals in our class. Not only because a picture is worth a thousand words, but because our job as economists is to make observation and to try to explore and explain those observations. Visuals make observations easier.

My two favorite sites are the chart feature at Gapminder.org and Our World in Data. 

On the Gapminder site, you can change the variables of analysis by clicking on the down arrow next to the variable name and choosing new variables from the various categories. Be sure to use the time feature at the bottom of the scatter plot. Gapminder has tons of other great stuff including maps and TED talks, so be sure to explore the whole site.

The Our World in Data site is also pretty amazing. Be sure to scroll down on the main page to see the numerous topics that are covered.

Below are some additional visuals and sites that we used in class. 

Here is a world map showing nations economic status according to the World Bank Income Classification scheme (caution, big file)

Easy exchange rate calculations here at xe.com 

Read about The UN Millennium Development goals here

Read about the UN Sustainable Development goals here 

Here is a map of several development indices from The United Nations Development Program

This is a nice graphic showing the composition of different development indices

Here is a list of HDI values by country from the UN

The US Census Bureau has a detailed map showing poverty in the US

Data and graphs pertaining to population growth can be found at the World Bank

The world population clock is fun

The UN gives us populations projections by country

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has a great article (with visuals) on the Internal Rate of Return to Education and the College Wage Premium 

National Geographic shows us what the world eats (note the time scroll at the bottom)

Vox.com has a cool visual showing the world's shipping routes

Metrocosm has an amazing visual showing two centuries of immigration to the US

Slate has a visual showing over 300 years of slave trade.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute has good data on SWFs all over the world

The Atlas of Economic Complexity from The Center for International Development at Harvard University has some great visuals, including the composition of exports and imports by country

Here is the World Conflict Map from the Council on Foreign Relations

Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth

Here is a link to an empirical analysis of income inequality and economic growth by Federico Cingano of OECD.

One of the main takeaways is that higher inequality (higher Gini coefficient or higher Palma ratio) results in less investment in education by households in the poorest quintiles (poorest 40% of the population), which results in less economic growth.  The study also finds that increases in the incomes of the richest households has no effect on economic growth and that redistribution policies (higher taxes for the rich and transfers to the poor) need not have an adverse impact on economic growth.

Joseph Stiglitz

We're discussing inequality in class these days, so we should learn about Joseph Stiglitz.

Here is a 2016 interview with Stiglitz at The Atlantic, where he discusses inequality, the Fed, candidates for president and economists.

Here is a short 2015 article at the Huffington Post about inequality.

Here is a short video of Stiglitz at the Ford Foundation.

Inequality, Superstars and economic growth

Here is a great article from the NYT (published in 2010) that outlines a lot of the issues we are discussing in class. 

MDGs and SDGs

Here are links to information about the UN's Milineum Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals.

MDGs Overview

Read about MDG progress:

From the UN

More from the UN

More reading from The Guardian

And more here from the World Bank

SDGs Overview

Lots of details here

HDI and other development indices

Below are the links we used in class pertaining to the Human Development Index (HDI), the Inequality-Adjusted HDI, the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

HDI by country
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components

HDI map

http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries

HDI calculator

https://www.easycalculation.com/finance/human-development-index.php

Gapminder plot:  HDI and per capita GDP (PPP)

http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2011$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=tyadrylIpQ1K_iHP407374Q;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=0.174;dataMax=0.943$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=

IHDI

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-3-inequality-adjusted-human-development-index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI

GII

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-4-gender-inequality-index

MPI

http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Tenindicators.jpg?0a8fd7

http://www.dataforall.org/dashboard/ophi/index.php

Technical notes on these indices (good graphic)

http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2015_technical_notes.pdf

The Big Mac Index

The Big Mac Index (created by The Economist magazine in the 1980s) allows us to compare local prices for a single good which is sold all over the world. We should recognize that this measure is mostly for fun. The price of a single good (a burger) is not a great proxy of general purchasing power of non-tradable goods. 

WSJ article on the disipline of economics

A great article from Friday's Wall Street Journal. Here is the link.

GDP as a measure of wellbeing

Here is an article at CBS news regarding a topic we're covering in class: GDP as a measure of well being. The article summarizes the thoughts of 3 economists who participated in the World Economic Forum in early 2016.  We should also keep in mind the positive aspects of GDP: it is easily and universally measured and understood, and is strongly correlated with many aspects of human well being.

More on the topic here at Harvard Business Review.

Longer article here at the Solutions Journal, which includes analysis and historical context. 

Global Health Check

On the topic of world health, check out this interactive tool created by Beyond Words Studio for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Mosaic. 

Enter your year of birth (or any year in the past) and see the progress that has been made in terms of health outcomes and health inputs.

Microloans

Here is a cool story about microloans at NPR.org

It looks like the benefits of microloans have been overstated through the years, but the news is not all bad.

Brain Drain in SIDS

Here is a good article on brain drain the Caribbean from Mark Wenner at Nationnews.

Education, human capital and economic growth

Here is a short article by Brian Francis (Lecturer in Economics at UWI Cave Hill) that appeared in today's Nation News (Barbados). Francis discusses the importance of education in affecting economic growth and development during that latter stages of a nation's economic evolution. Notice that his description fits nicely into the framework of the Solow model.

There is an important back story here. The government of Barbados recently implemented a significant cut to student subsidies, which resulted in a dramatic decrease in enrollments at the University of the West Indies. The purpose of the cuts was to save money. Transfers from the Barbados government to UWI decreased by approximately US $21 million per year as a result of the cuts. 

How (and when) could we figure out if this policy resulted in net gains? 

Stiglitz on inequality (and other stuff)

We can't talk about inequality without talking about Joseph Stiglitz.

Stiglitz is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work on asymmetric information in markets and the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association in 1979. Stiglitz served as senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and was the chairman of the US president's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration.

Stiglitz is a harsh critic of the use of GDP as a measure of economic well being. Here is a short article on this topic at The Guardian.  For those of you that like to outsource your reading, here is a YouTube video.

Stiglitz also writes quite a lot about the effects of inequality on growth.
Here is an interview at Rolling Stone.
Here is a book review at the NYT

Here is a long article with lots of good economics at Vanity Fair

Here is a video of his TED Talk on inequality 

Sachs: "Sustainable development ... conveys a new and better approach to national problem solving"

Here is a link to an article in today's Boston Globe by Jeffrey Sachs.

The main points Sachs makes pertain to our ability to shape our economic future through investment in the pillars of development (education, health, social fairness, environmental quality). He highlights the UN SDG's and covers a lot of interesting ground with regard to contemporary economic fears.  I like that Sachs notes that economic growth and environmental protection are mutually supportive rather than mutually exclusive as is often argued. The follow-up articles should be interesting. Please help me keep an eye out for them.

The world is getting better

There is a lot of doom and gloom these days. Opinion polls tend to show that most people think the world is falling apart. In our class we'll talk a lot about poverty, inequality and the plight of the poorest of the world's poor. Much of this will be depressing. It's important therefore to be mindful of the major progress that has been made in the recent past.

Here is a short piece from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times highlighting some of the progress the world has made in terms of reducing poverty, disease and illiteracy.  Be sure to check out the link to the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals and also check out the progress that was made on the last set of goals (the Millennium Development Goals).

Purchasing Power Parity

One of the main themes of our course is understanding differences between nations.  In order to do this we need to measure stuff (income, education, health, etc.) that we want to compare.   One of the issues with comparing income measures (like GDP, GNP and GNI) across nations is that when converting to a common currency (for apples-to-apples comparisons) if we rely on official ("market") exchange rates, we may underestimate living standards in developing nations due to lower prices of "non-traded goods".   For accurate comparisons of living standards, we should convert a nation's income to another currency value using the Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate, rather than the official exchange rate.

Here is a link to FAQ about PPP at OECD.

Here is more reading about PPP vs. official exchange rates at IMF.

Here is a link to a recent article at The Economist describing the Big Mac index, which was designed to be a cute and easy way to understand the idea of purchasing power parity exchange rates.

US Inequality in 6 charts

From the New Yorker.
Hat tip: DC

Last chance...

What were your favorite/least favorite topics of the course?
What topic do you think is the most pressing in terms of where policy makers should address their attention?
What are some interesting research questions related to growth and development that you'd like to learn more about?

Dutch disease in Nigeria

Here is an excellent synopsis of the situation in Nigeria, straight from the ground level.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this documentary (Poison Fire) is worth a few million. It's 30 minutes long, but well worth it.