Economics and International Business For the past few years, interest in aggregate or composite indicators of economic and social well-being at the community, national and international levels has grown greatly. For example, the annual release of the United Nations’ human development Index (HDI) generates considerable media interest, particularly in Canada.
It is, therefore, often in debates on the inadequacies of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a welfare measure. The main question is that whether GDP, which is already and frequently used, or HDI, which consists of more factors including GDP, more suitable and accurate to rank countries in terms of social well-being. To start with, social well-being is an end state in which basic human needs are met and people are able to coexist peacefully in communities with opportunities for advancement.
This end state is characterized by equal access to and delivery of basic needs services (water, food, shelter and health services), the provision of primary and secondary education, the return of resettlement of those displaced by violent conflict, and the restoration of social fabric and community life. This term, consequently, is the leading comprehensive to rank countries. Taking GDP into account, it is the market value of officially recognized final goods and services produced within a year.
GDP is equal to Consumption + Gross Investment + Government Spending + (Exports – Imports), or GDP = C + I + G + (X – M).
The Essay on Department Of Social Services
The Department of Social Services provide a wide range of services to the elderly, the disabled, families in need, and to lone individuals in need of assistance in once again attaining their full potential. Most of these individuals have exhausted all other means of support and have no other choice but to rely on the programs offered by the Department of Social Services. The Department of Social ...
GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country‘s standard of living. To be more specific, GDP does not measure people’s well-being, but rather, as everyone has already reckoned, the well-being of the economy. In addition, it indicates the value of what has been produced in the economy over the year, thus, telling how much stuff the nation has. GDP is, apparently, the easiest measurement thanks to readily available data.
However, it only illustrates how well off people are in the sense of material prosperity, not the quality of environment, wealth or average level of education. Conceivably, there is no other headline that captures the essence of GDP better than the Reuters headline after the catastrophes of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The disasters ravaged the citizens, over 850,000 homes damages, thousands of people becoming refugees, devastation of over 1. 3 million acres of forests, avoidable deaths of 1,836 men, women and children, and more unthinkable residual destruction.
This damage through the GDP prism injected billions of dollars into the economy and is seen as economic benefit, completely ignoring the negative impact upon people and the environment. Another instance, America borrows money from abroad to sustain the economy. The main avenue for economic sustainability is by producing cash through debt, by sale of US Treasuries. This activity contributes to the GDP, alas, the debt has to be repaid. Americans mainly go into debt for consumption not capital investment.
Herein, this national and personal debt must ultimately be paid back; this downside of excessive debt is not reflected in GDP. One more disadvantage is that GDP does not include any services of non-financial transactions like volunteer work, elderly parental care, child care and such are not measured. Whereas, the initial economic activity used to generate the waste was added to the GDP, the ensuing clean-up will again add to the GDP which is apparently seen in the American Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean-up Program.
China, for instance, was the world’s number one emitter of toxic carbon dioxide during the year 2006 as a result of its manufacturing and industry-related activities. While this contributed to overall GDP of China, its people were still suffering working and living in polluted areas. Regarding HDI, it is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education and income indices to rank countries into four tiers of human development. HDI combines three dimensions: a long and healthy life, years of schooling and expected years of schooling and a decent standard of living: Components of the Human Development Index
The Term Paper on Development of the Human Zygote
Development of the Human Zygote, Human Reproduction EssayNovember 16, 1995 Hundreds of thousands of times a year a single-celled zygote, smaller than a grain of sand, transforms into an amazingly complex network of cells, a newborn infant. Through cellular differentiation and growth, this process is completed with precision time and time again, but very rarely a mistake in the 'blueprint' of ...
This indicator, therefore, is more reliable than GDP. HDI index values range from 0 to 1. Those countries with an HDI of over 0. 800 are part of the High Human Development group. Those between 0. 500 and 0. 800, are considered as Medium Human Development countries and the rest are Low Human Development countries. HDI, actually, an inspirational index and it sets straightforward targets for nations. In fact, it has forced nations to look beyond national income as crude measure of success – a vital step as our global society attempts to live within planetary boundaries.
Along with quality of life, such as health care, food consumption, safe drinking water, illiteracy rate and higher education, the success of government policy can also be seen. Therefore, this creates political competitiveness among countries to increase their HDI rank. Indeed, the 2010 report states “The human development approach has profoundly affected an entire generation of policy-makers and development specialists around the world”. It is unavoidable that HDI also has its failure. Incredibly, HDI does not take any account of the environment as well as politics and gender equality.
Besides, the values change very quickly and are likely to be inaccurate or misleading. On the whole, however, the error counts for little percentage. Of course, both HDI and GDP do not deal with some problems arising from the development process in each country like resource depletion, environment pollution or the matter of gender as well as income distribution. As far as I am concerned, if I am to make a choice between the two indexes, my preference is the Human Development Index (HDI) for the sake of a more comprehensive measure of the social welfare in a specific region.
First, in terms of human development, we must admit that a vast majority of people have equated the concept with the material accumulation by comparing GDP among countries to indicate their prosperity. Up to the point when HDI was introduced, the dominant view of development presumed that the level and growth of income sufficed as the criterion for human well-being. Notwithstanding, to have an exact measure of a country’s social well- being, not only material wealth (namely goods and services) but also mental components (including health and education) must be taken into account.
The Essay on Hindered The Country’s Economic Development
The Conservative Party which was leaded by Winston Churchill (1951-55) and Anthony Eden (1955-57) and Harold Macmillan (1957-63) between the years 1951-59 wanted, according to their manifesto in 1951, to stop all further nationalisation. The Iron and Steel Act will be repealed and the Steel industry allowed resuming its achievements of the war and post-war years. To supervise prices and ...
Mahbub ul Haq, the founder of the Human Development Report, once said that: “The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative life”. However, from the calculation of GDP, it is clear that only the values of goods and services are covered which means that GDP just cares about economic evolution, regardless of other various elements ranging from environment depletion to literacy level. Conversely, from HDI prism, it is apparent that although simply calculated, the index gives us a thorough review of a society with the concern of GDP per capita, education and health.
Obviously, by using the integrity of data from different domains, HDI helps multiple countries as well as their residents to be more aware of their contemporary standard of living. Subsequently, in one way or another, some policies could be designed by the government or the local authority to enhance the life quality and the social welfare as a whole. Second, some may argue that GDP growth is the ground for the reinforcement and advance in education as well as health care and that it is unnecessary to have HDI as another index to measure human development.
However, many countries indeed possess not so high GDP but still have a considerable Human Development Index compared with other much higher-ranking GDP countries. For example, in the year 2006, America’s GDP was roughly 15. 000 billion dollars, ranking the first place of all countries concerned whereas Norway with 276 billion dollars only came the 42nd order in the list. By contrast, the HDI of the latter country in the same year stood at the highest rank compared with the 10th place of the United States. The fact is obvious that GDP only covers the value of economic activities including goods and services produced within a country.
The Term Paper on The Importance Of Physical Education And Health Education
Physical and health education is a significant aspect of a wholesome education around the world. Ministries of education all over the globe incorporate physical and health education into its curriculum. This clearly indicates that both physical and health education are key aspects in the development of an individual. Physical education is defined as a course of education learning that in a ...
Nevertheless, even a person’s income is at an upper level which means that he could afford and demand for a better healthcare system and education facility but that country would rather focus on developing its economy than other such sectors. Consequently, the resident’s life span would not be so satisfactorily high or there would be few modernized schools to meet with the basic needs of the inhabitants there. . In addition, many factories in developing countries try their best to boost their products contributing to GDP but at the same time they damage the environment such as dumping unprocessed waste right into rivers.
This irresponsible behavior has posed a direct threat to people’s health. Thus, high-ranking GDP does not refer to relative social well-being of a country whereas HDI with the content of literacy and longevity at birth can give a broader sense of views over the happiness level of a country’s populace. In conclusion, a society being better off or not does not depend on the material wealth that some may mistake. To simplify, it is like one country has a bigger cake but it is divided inequally while the other country has a smaller cake but it is divided more equally.
That is the matter of how that country expend that wealth so that its people could have as many beneficial choices as possible regarding health as well as education. Based on that fact, HDI with the composite of education, health and command over resources is definitely the better welfare measurement than mere GDP.
