•(1)
Can you find the indicators for your country we identified as the development
gap (income, poverty, health, education, urbanization)?
What did the
development gap look like in 1960 for your country? 1990? Today? You should
check the World Bank World Development
Indicators we went over in
class.
•(2)
Can you find measures of international poverty and income inequality for your
country? What did poverty and inequality look like in 1960? 1990? Today? The
Worldwide Inequality database will likely be helpful here.
•(3)
Can you find measures of fertility and infant mortality rates and life
expectancy for your country? Is your country young and growing, a
stable
population, or aging and shrinking? Googling “(country name) population
pyramid” will likely be useful here.
•(1)
Does your country have data available in the Penn World Tables to determine
whether your country is near the steady-state capital stock? What does the
history of this steady state analysis suggest? Does your country have data
available to determine whether your country is on a balanced growth path? What
does the history of their growth path suggest?
•(2) Does your country have data
available in the Penn World Tables to do a growth accounting exercise? From
this analysis, what appears to
be the driving force in economic growth for your
country? Has this changed over time?
•(3)
Does your country have data available in the World Bank WDI to observe
structural change in the economy? You will need to download the shares of GDP
devoted to agriculture, industry, manufacturing, and services. Additionally,
does your country have measures of urbanization? Is your country primarily
rural, starting to urbanize, rapidly urbanizing, or primarily urban? How has
the structure of economic activity and
urbanization changed over time?
•(1)
How
has your country’s level of economic integration with the rest of the world
changed over the last 60 years? Does trade make up a significant portion of
economic output? Is your country part of any free trade areas, custom union,
even more integrated economic unions?
•(2) What kind of exchange rate
regime does your country have? Has this changed over the last 60 years? What
does your country’s exchange rate regime mean for the trilemma of independent
monetary policy, free capital flows, and exchange rate fluctuations?
•(3)
How does the World Bank rate the rule of law for your country? What does this
mean for transaction costs in your country? Has the rule of law improved or
declined over the sample period?
