The environmental kuznets curve
Suggests that industrialisation occurs, environmental degradation increases and then begins to decrease again in the post-industrial phase.
It’s a hypothesised relationship between environmental quality and economic development.
Lorenz curve
A graph on which the cumulative percentage of total national income (or some other variable) is plotted against the cumulative percentage of the corresponding population (ranked in increasing size of share).
The extent to which the curve sags below a straight diagonal line, indicates the degree of inequality of distribution.
Gini Coefficient
A measurement of the income distribution of a country’s residents. The number, which ranges between 0 & 1 and is based on the residents net income, helps define the gap between rich and poor, with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing perfect inequality.
It’s defined as a ratio of the areas on the Lorenz curve diagram. If the area between the line of perfect equality and the Lorenz curve is A & the area under the Lorenz curve is B, then the Gini Index G = A/(A+B).
Since A+B=0.5 the Gini index G = 2A or 1-2B
Unequal society example
South Africa
It’s Gini coefficient ranges from roughly 0.660 to 0.696
What’s quality of life
The degree of well-being and satisfaction felt by a person or a group of people in a particular area.
Components of it are physical, social, economic & psychological.
IMF
“International Monetary Fund”
Established to oversea the global financial system, key aim is to renegotiate the terms of debt for nations in financial difficulties. It offers financial and technical assistance to its members, can lend money.
World Bank
International bank for reconstruction and development.
It mainly deals with internal investment projects, usually in developing countries, with the stated aim of reducing poverty.
What’s development
It’s the economic and social progress which leads to an improvement in the standard of living and quality of life for an increasing proportion of the population.
It can be economic, demographic, social, cultural, political and environmental
Economic development indicators
GDP, GNI, employment by sector, energy consumption, income per capita.
GDP
“Gross Domestic Product”
Its a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period (quarterly or yearly).
GNI
“Gross national income”
It’s the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of s country, consisting of gross domestic product (gdp) plus factor incomes earned by foreign residents, minus income earned in the domestic economy by non-residents.
Comparing the GNI and GDP shows whether a nations resources are put to capital creation or declining toward abroad.
Income per capita
Per capita income is often used to measure an areas average income. This is used to compare the wealth of one population will h those of others. It’s also often used to measure a country’s standard of living.
Social development indicators
HDI & GII
HDI
“Human Development Index”
It’s a composite index and is an attempt by the United Nations to quantify living conditions and quality of life around the world.
Each nation has been investigated since 1975 and given a 3 digit number expressed as a decimal. High human development is 0.800 and over, medium is 0.500-0.799 & low is 0.4999 and lower.
GII
“Gender Inequality Index”
Barrier to human development
It’s an inequality index that measure gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development. It’s built on the same framework as HDI, to better expose differences in the distribution of achievements between men and women. It measures the human development costs of gender inequality, thus the higher the GII value, the more disparities between men and women and the more loss to human development.
What’s the development gap
The difference in levels of development and quality of life between countries or regions. Globally there’s a clear gap between HICs and LICs.
At the bottom of the development gap are many of the African nation states.
Symptoms and causes of a development gap
Various development and quality of life indicators reveal the differences between development levels.
The broad causes of inequality on a global scale are both historic and current, and internal and external.
North South Divide
One of the most common ways of characterising the global development gap.
The Brandt Line is a visual depiction of the north-south divide between their economies. It encircles the world at a latitude of 30degrees N, passing between north and Central America, North Africa and India,Mobutu lowered towards the south to include Australia and New Zealand above the line.
What’s the development continuum
It’s a contemporary way of viewing development. Essentially the development continuum is a sliding scale from most to least developed countries with lots of intermediates such as BRICs and NICs.
It illustrates the complexities that the Brandt Line fails to display. It a,so indicates the importance of changing roles of countries such as Asian Tigers (originally LICs that attracted TNCs and consequential cumulative causation accelerated development.
What’s an emerging economy
It’s a nation with social or business activity in the process of rapid growth and industrialisation.
What’s are BRICS
It’s a group acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development. Since 2010, it includes South Africa.
Open borders
These allow EU citizens to have a right to freely move around the EU.
E.g. In 2015 there were roughly 250,000 French living in London.
FDI
“Foreign Direct Investment”
A process which has led to cultural mix and thriving migrant diasporas in some locations.
Diasporas
The distribution of people away from their homelands, a result from the dispersal of people throughout the world.
E.g. In 2015 the uk attracted over 32,000 jobs from overseas-owned companies investing in software and financial services.
