economic progress essay

IELTS Essay: Economic Progress

by Dave | Real Past Tests | 7 Comments

This is my IELTS writing task 2 sample answer essay on the topic of economic progress from the real IELTS exam.

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Many governments think that economic progress is their most important goal. Some people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a country.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Many today have made the argument that governments are overly focused on economic development to the detriment of more valuable areas of progress. In my opinion, though economic progress is often the catalyst for different forms of growth, the other areas are at least equally as important.

Supporters of economic progress point out its importance for individuals and societies generally. A thriving economy allows the average citizen to increase their quality of life in various ways. Individuals who are provided good jobs and lucrative opportunities are able to afford better healthcare, own a home potentially, purchase luxuries, and take holidays. In the aggregate, all these minor additions combine to ground a satisfied and happy life, though they are naturally not absolute guarantees. The clearest evidence of the value of this approach is that voters in democratic nations like the United States typically base their decisions primarily on economic factors.

However, economics is the basis for other areas of progress. This relates to education, standards of living, infrastructure, and, most importantly in the 21st century, the environment. In past centuries, individuals could be forgiven for considering economics to be the most important duty of governments. Today, the possibility that the Earth will face cataclysmic changes in the next century has dramatically shifted that calculus. Most researchers agree that overpopulation and the manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods are greatly exacerbating climate change and may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth. Therefore, simply prioritizing the economic causes of a degrading environment would be short-sighted.

In conclusion, though economics is the basic foundation of modern civil societies, governments today should not neglect equally as crucial aspects such as the environment. The economy is means for enacting other reforms, not an end in itself.

1. Many today have made the argument that governments are overly focused on economic development to the detriment of more valuable areas of progress. 2. In my opinion, though economic progress is often the catalyst for different forms of growth, the other areas are at least equally as important.

• Paraphrase the overall essay topic.
• Write a clear opinion. Read more about introductions here .

1. Supporters of economic progress point out its importance for individuals and societies generally. 2. A thriving economy allows the average citizen to increase their quality of life in various ways. 3. Individuals who are provided good jobs and lucrative opportunities are able to afford better healthcare, own a home potentially, purchase luxuries, and take holidays. 4. In the aggregate, all these minor additions combine to ground a satisfied and happy life, though they are naturally not absolute guarantees. 5. The clearest evidence of the value of this approach is that voters in democratic nations like the United States typically base their decisions primarily on economic factors.

• Write a topic sentence with a clear main idea at the end.
• Explain your main idea.
• Develop it with specific or hypothetical examples.
• Keep developing it fully.
• You can sometimes include the counterpoint here too.

1. However, economics is the basis for other areas of progress. 2. This relates to education, standards of living, infrastructure, and, most importantly in the 21st century, the environment. 3. In past centuries, individuals could be forgiven for considering economics to be the most important duty of governments. 4. Today, the possibility that the Earth will face cataclysmic changes in the next century has dramatically shifted that calculus. 5. Most researchers agree that overpopulation and the manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods are greatly exacerbating climate change and may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth. 6. Therefore, simply prioritizing the economic causes of a degrading environment would be short-sighted.

• Write a new topic sentence with a new main idea at the end.
• Explain your new main idea.
• Include specific details and examples.
• Add as much information as you can and make sure it links logically.
• Continue your development.
• Finish strong.

1. In conclusion, though economics is the basic foundation of modern civil societies, governments today should not neglect equally as crucial aspects such as the environment. 2. The economy is means for enacting other reforms, not an end in itself.

• Summarise your main ideas.
• Include a final thought. Read more about conclusions here .

What do the words in bold below mean? Make some notes on paper to aid memory and then check below.

Many today have made the argument that governments are overly focused on economic development to the detriment of more valuable areas of progress . In my opinion, though economic progress is often the catalyst for different forms of growth , the other areas are at least equally as important .

Supporters of economic progress point out its importance for individuals and societies generally . A thriving economy allows the average citizen to increase their quality of life in various ways . Individuals who are provided good jobs and lucrative opportunities are able to afford better healthcare , own a home potentially , purchase luxuries , and take holidays . In the aggregate , all these minor additions combine to ground a satisfied and happy life , though they are naturally not absolute guarantees. The clearest evidence of the value of this approach is that voters in democratic nations like the United States typically base their decisions primarily on economic factors .

However, economics is the basis for other areas of progress. This relates to education, standards of living, infrastructure , and, most importantly in the 21st century , the environment. In past centuries , individuals could be forgiven for considering economics to be the most important duty of governments . Today, the possibility that the Earth will face cataclysmic changes in the next century has dramatically shifted that calculus . Most researchers agree that overpopulation and the manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods are greatly exacerbating climate change and may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth . Therefore, simply prioritizing the economic causes of a degrading environment would be short-sighted .

In conclusion, though economics is the basic foundation of modern civil societies , governments today should not neglect equally as crucial aspects such as the environment . The economy is means for enacting other reforms , not an end in itself .

For extra practice, write an antonym (opposite word) on a piece of paper to help you remember the new vocabulary:

Many today have made the argument some today point out that

overly focused on economic development to the detriment of care too much about money and that hurts

more valuable areas of progress places that are more important to develop

though economic progress is often the catalyst for different forms of growth despite the fact economics is the reason that other areas can develop typically

other areas are at least equally as important they are of the same importance

Supporters of economic progress point out those in favor of finance argue

importance value

generally overall

A thriving economy allows the average citizen to a good economy lets normal people

increase their quality of life in various ways improve standards of living a variety of aspects

provided given

lucrative opportunities good chances

afford better healthcare go to better hospitals

own a home potentially buy a house possible

purchase luxuries buy nice things

take holidays go on vacation

In the aggregate combined

all these minor additions combine to ground a satisfied and happy life these little factors add up to be the basis of happiness

naturally not absolute guarantees of course don’t mean it will happen 100%

The clearest evidence of the value of this approach is that the best support for this way of thinking is

voters in democratic nations like the United States residents in countries like the USA

typically base their decisions primarily on economic factors usually vote because of how the economy is doing

basis foundation

relates to concerns

infrastructure buildings, roads, schools, etc.

most importantly in the 21st century crucially today

In past centuries in the past

individuals could be forgiven for considering it was understandable to think

most important duty of governments the main responsibility

face cataclysmic changes in the next century things might get really bad over the next 100 years

dramatically shifted that calculus greatly changes one’s way of thinking about it

overpopulation too many people

manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods using products

greatly exacerbating climate change making global warming worse

may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth can greatly hurt all animals and plants

simply merely

economic causes financial roots

degrading environment worsening nature

short-sighted not long-term thinking

the basic foundation of modern civil societies the basis of the world today

should not neglect equally as crucial aspects ought to not forget about other key areas

such as the environment including nature

The economy is means for enacting other reforms economics is a way to achieve other things

not an end in itself not just to be pursued for its own purpose

Pronunciation

Practice saying the vocabulary below and use this tip about Google voice search :

ˈmɛni təˈdeɪ hæv meɪd ði ˈɑːgjʊmənt   ˈəʊvəli ˈfəʊkəst ɒn ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk dɪˈvɛləpmənt tuː ˈdɛtrɪmənt ɒv   mɔː ˈvæljʊəbl ˈeərɪəz ɒv ˈprəʊgrəs ðəʊ ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˈprəʊgrəs ɪz ˈɒf(ə)n ðə ˈkætəlɪst fɔː ˈdɪfrənt fɔːmz ɒv grəʊθ   ˈʌðər ˈeərɪəz ɑːr æt liːst ˈiːkwəli æz ɪmˈpɔːtənt səˈpɔːtəz ɒv ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˈprəʊgrəs pɔɪnt aʊt   ɪmˈpɔːtəns   ˈʤɛnərəli ə ˈθraɪvɪŋ i(ː)ˈkɒnəmi əˈlaʊz ði ˈævərɪʤ ˈsɪtɪzn tuː   ˈɪnkriːs ðeə ˈkwɒlɪti ɒv laɪf ɪn ˈveərɪəs weɪz prəˈvaɪdɪd   ˈluːkrətɪv ˌɒpəˈtjuːnɪtiz   əˈfɔːd ˈbɛtə ˈhɛlθkeə əʊn ə həʊm pəʊˈtɛnʃəli ˈpɜːʧəs ˈlʌkʃəriz   teɪk ˈhɒlədeɪz ɪn ði ˈægrɪgɪt ɔːl ðiːz ˈmaɪnər əˈdɪʃ(ə)nz ˈkɒmbaɪn tuː graʊnd ə ˈsætɪsfaɪd ænd ˈhæpi laɪf ˈnæʧrəli nɒt ˈæbsəluːt ˌgærənˈtiːz ðə ˈklɪərɪst ˈɛvɪdəns ɒv ðə ˈvæljuː ɒv ðɪs əˈprəʊʧ ɪz ðæt ˈvəʊtəz ɪn ˌdɛməˈkrætɪk ˈneɪʃənz laɪk ðə jʊˈnaɪtɪd steɪts   ˈtɪpɪk(ə)li beɪs ðeə dɪˈsɪʒənz ˈpraɪmərɪli ɒn ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˈfæktəz ˈbeɪsɪs   rɪˈleɪts tuː   ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌkʧə məʊst ɪmˈpɔːtəntli ɪn ðə ˈtwɛnti fɜːst ˈsɛnʧʊri ɪn pɑːst ˈsɛnʧʊriz ˌɪndɪˈvɪdjʊəlz kʊd biː fəˈgɪvn fɔː kənˈsɪdərɪŋ   məʊst ɪmˈpɔːtənt ˈdjuːti ɒv ˈgʌvnmənts feɪs ˌkætəˈklɪzmɪk ˈʧeɪnʤɪz ɪn ðə nɛkst ˈsɛnʧʊri   drəˈmætɪk(ə)li ˈʃɪftɪd ðæt ˈkælkjʊləs ˌəʊvəˌpɒpjʊˈleɪʃən   ˌmænjʊˈfækʧərɪŋ ænd kənˈsʌm(p)ʃən ɒv kənˈsjuːmə gʊdz   ˈgreɪtli ɛksˈæsə(ː)beɪtɪŋ ˈklaɪmɪt ʧeɪnʤ   meɪ liːd tuː ˈsaɪzmɪk dɪsˈrʌpʃənz fɔːr ɔːl laɪf ɒn ɜːθ ˈsɪmpli   ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˈkɔːzɪz   dɪˈgreɪdɪŋ ɪnˈvaɪərənmənt   ʃɔːt-ˈsaɪtɪd ðə ˈbeɪsɪk faʊnˈdeɪʃən ɒv ˈmɒdən ˈsɪvl səˈsaɪətiz ʃʊd nɒt nɪˈglɛkt ˈiːkwəli æz ˈkruːʃəl ˈæspɛkts   sʌʧ æz ði ɪnˈvaɪərənmənt ði i(ː)ˈkɒnəmi ɪz miːnz fɔːr ɪˈnæktɪŋ ˈʌðə ˌriːˈfɔːmz nɒt ən ɛnd ɪn ɪtˈsɛlf

Vocabulary Practice

I recommend getting a pencil and piece of paper because that aids memory. Then write down the missing vocabulary from my sample answer in your notebook:

M__________________________________t that governments are o_______________________________n e______________________________________f m_________________________s . In my opinion, t______________________________________r d______________________________h , the o______________________________________________t .

S__________________________________________t its i______________e for individuals and societies g__________y . A____________________________________________________o i___________________________________s . Individuals who are p__________d good jobs and l_______________________s are able to a________________________e , o____________________________y , p____________________s , and t____________s . I_______________e , a______________________________________o g_______________________________e , though they are n___________________________s. T___________________________________________________t v______________________________________s t___________________________________________s .

However, economics is the b_______s for other areas of progress. This r________o education, standards of living, i_________________e , and, m_____________________________y , the environment. I_______________s , i___________________________________________________g economics to be the m____________________________s . Today, the possibility that the Earth will f___________________________________y has d_________________________s . Most researchers agree that o_______________n and the m_____________________________________s are g_______________________________e and m_____________________________________________h . Therefore, s______y prioritizing the e___________________s of a d_______________________t would be s___________d .

In conclusion, though economics is t__________________________________________s , governments today s___________________________________________________________t . T____________________________________________s , n____________________________f .

Listening Practice

Learn more about this topic by watching from YouTube below and practice with these activities :

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheEconomist

Reading Practice

Read more about this topic and use these ideas to practice :

https://sustainabilitymag.com/top10/top-10-greenest-countries-2

Speaking Practice

Practice with the following speaking questions from the real IELTS speaking exam :

Work  (Model answer available on my  Patreon )

• Are you student or are you working now?
• What do you like about your job/school at the moment?
• What job would you like to do in the future?

Writing Practice

Practice with the related IELTS essay topics below:

Developing the economy will always damage the environment.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

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Hope everything is going well. First of all, I would like to thank you for sharing these great model essays with us.

I think this sentence needs improvement. “ Many today have made the argument that governments are overly focused on economic development to detriment of more valuable areas of progress.”

The idiomatic expression “to the detriment of somebody/something” is the acceptable form in English. I feel the article “the” should be added to the aforesaid sentence to make it grammatically correct.

Apart form this, let’s take a look at this sentence in the 2nd Body Paragraph. “Most researchers agree that overpopulation and the manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods is greatly exacerbating climate change and may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth.”

I think “subject-verb agreement” doesn’t match in this sentence.

Best regards,

I think this sentence needs improvement. “Many today have made the argument that governments are overly focused on economic development to detriment of more valuable areas of progress.”

The idiomatic expression “to the detriment of somebody/something” is the acceptable form in English. I feel the article “the” should be added to the aforesaid sentence to make it grammatically correct.

Apart from this, let’s take a look at this sentence in the 2nd Body Paragraph. “Most researchers agree that overpopulation and the manufacturing and consumption of consumer goods is greatly exacerbating climate change and may lead to seismic disruptions for all life on Earth.”

I think “subject-verb agreement” doesn’t match in this sentence.

Thanks Hojat – to the detriment of – is a fixed expression and I didn’t even notice the ‘the’ wasn’t in there – updated!

My pleasure, Dave.

Hi Dave Thank you for sharing this great essay

You’re welcome, Madina!

Please l need free task one and two essays

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Many Governments Think That Economic Progress Is Their Most Important Goal - IELTS Band 9 Essay

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Model Essay 1

In today's rapidly evolving world, the prioritization of economic progress by many governments is often debated. While some contend that economic growth is paramount for national development, others argue for a more balanced approach, emphasizing social and environmental progress as equally vital. This essay explores both perspectives and asserts that a holistic approach is crucial for sustainable national prosperity.

Economic progress is undeniably a cornerstone of national development. A strong economy not only enhances a country’s global standing but also provides the necessary resources for maintaining infrastructure, healthcare, and education. For instance, Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden, which consistently rank high in economic performance, are able to invest heavily in social welfare programs, resulting in high living standards and excellent public services. This correlation between economic strength and enhanced public welfare illustrates why many believe that economic growth should be a government’s primary focus. By funnelling resources into education and healthcare, these nations not only ensure a healthier, more educated workforce but also drive sustained economic advancement, creating a virtuous cycle of development.

However, an overemphasis on economic progress can lead to the neglect of critical areas such as environmental sustainability and social equality. For example, rapid industrial growth in countries like China has led to significant environmental degradation and stark social disparities. The adverse effects of prioritizing economic growth at the expense of environmental health have prompted global calls for sustainable practices. This scenario highlights the necessity of integrating environmental and social goals within the economic development framework to ensure long-term sustainability. Countries like Germany have shown that incorporating renewable energy and social equity into their economic planning not only supports environmental sustainability but also fosters social cohesion and resilience against economic downturns.

In conclusion, while economic progress is essential for a country’s development, it should not overshadow other crucial aspects of progress. A balanced approach that equally values economic, social, and environmental objectives is indispensable. By fostering such a synergy, nations can achieve sustainable prosperity and a higher quality of life for all their citizens.

Model Essay 2

Many governments prioritize economic development as the primary measure of national progress. However, a faction believes other forms of advancement are equally crucial. This essay argues that while economic growth is essential, other progress dimensions—social, environmental, and cultural—also play vital roles in a nation’s holistic development, which will be explored in the subsequent paragraphs.

Economic progress is often quantified by metrics like GDP growth, which undoubtedly boosts living standards through improved infrastructure, healthcare, and education. For instance, South Korea's rapid economic ascent has transformed it into a global innovation hub, significantly enhancing the quality of life for its citizens with advanced technology and better job opportunities. However, this intense economic focus can overshadow vital areas such as social equity and environmental health. Economic growth, when pursued without considering the impacts of environmental degradation or widening social inequality, can lead to unsustainable futures. The 2008 global financial crisis exemplifies how purely economic pursuits without robust regulatory frameworks can lead to disastrous consequences, starkly highlighting the need for balanced development strategies that integrate economic, environmental, and social goals.

On the other hand, embracing a broader perspective of progress can lead to more sustainable and equitable outcomes. For example, Bhutan's focus on Gross National Happiness rather than solely on economic output has preserved its unique culture and environment while also promoting social well-being. This holistic approach strategically integrates environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and societal health as pillars of national prosperity, ensuring a balanced growth that benefits all. Such models illustrate that progress in sectors like education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability can be as critical as economic metrics. They contribute to a resilient and contented society that is better prepared for future challenges, promoting a comprehensive well-being that supports both the current and future generations, thus ensuring a sustainable development pathway.

In conclusion, while economic growth is undeniable in its importance, a nation's commitment to social, environmental, and cultural progress is equally significant. These multifaceted dimensions not only enhance immediate well-being but also ensure long-term sustainability and quality of life, embodying a truly progressive nation.

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Economic Progress is the only Way to Measure a Country’s Success

Economic progress is the only way to measure a country’s success.

Some people think that economic progress is the only way to measure a country’s success, while others think that there are other factors which determine it. What are these factors? And among them, which one is more important than others?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

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Some people think that economic progress is the only way to measure a country’s success IELTS Essay

Model Answer 1

It is widely believed that a successful country is one with a thick wallet. However, thorough scrutiny will reveal that there are many other parameters to assess the success of a nation, which are slightly less visible as compared to economic power. ielts xpress

The first among such factors is the distribution of wealth among citizens. In many countries, there exist a wide disparity in the financial status of people. While some are extremely rich, the remaining people are as poor as a church mouse. India epitomizes this category. Though India has some of the world’s richest people and a strong economy, the country, overall, is yet not developed.

Yet another factor, in my opinion, is social security. There are many countries in the world, which are under constant siege by civil wars, internal conflicts, religious riots, and other crimes of umpteen natures and proportions. Therefore, for a country, to be termed successful, it is highly necessary to ensure proper enforcement of rules and regulations.

Some other important factors which decide the success of a nation are the literacy rate, the health status of people, technological advancement, and gender equality. However, economic status is the main indicator of the success of a country. This is mainly because for all other key fields like education, health, and technology, money is required. In other words, only money can ensure the all-round development of a nation. IELTSXpress

As a whole, one can undoubtedly say that money alone cannot ensure the success of a nation though it is the key component of success.

Economic progress is the only way to measure a nation’s success IELTS Essay

Model Answer 2

Many economists, politicians and people around the world use economic progress as the only yardstick for evaluating a country’s progress. Others, however, consider other factors, such as education, healthcare, freedom of speech, to measure a country’s advancement. In my opinion, education exceeds all other factors in importance.

Access to education, freedom of speech, and healthcare should seriously be taken into consideration when assessing a nation’s success. Education for all citizens is pivotal to the success of a country. Freedom of speech is another crucial factor to certainly be considered. Freedom of speech promotes democracy, this, in turn, fosters prosperity in every facet of a nation. A very good example here is the Arab spring. Despite the tremendous economic success, many Arab nations are in severe crisis due to the absence of democracy. Aside from freedom of speech, the healthcare system is also an indicator to evaluate a nation’s achievement. A good healthcare system, measured by a reduced mortality rate to easy access to medical services, denotes the progress of a country.

Among these indicators, however, the right to education is the most effective way to measure a nation’s success. This is because education frees poor people from poverty, reduces inequalities and income disparities, empowers women, and creates a conducive environment for individuals to unlock their full potential. It also reaps considerable economic benefit to a country and helps societies to facilitate lasting peace and sustainable development. In fact, access to education is the key to all human rights, which in turn, pave the way for the success of a country. That is why the right to education is the most powerful factor in measuring a country’s achievement.

In conclusion, education proves to be a significant indicator to measure a nation’s success. However, other factors such as economic progress, healthcare facility and freedom of speech, also determine the prosperity of a country.

Economic Progress Country’s Success IELTS Essay

Model Answer 3

It is irrefutable that economic progress is one yardstick of determining a country’s success, but there is a range of other non-economic factors such as healthcare, the standard of education and availability of human rights which can be used to judge the well-being of a nation. I believe that the standard of education is the most important factor. IELTS Xpress

One of the main factors besides economic progress which determine a country’s development is the standard of education. The standard of education is important because a society to truly progress needs inquisitive minds. In other words, education should focus on innovation and curiosity. Moreover, I think there should be good teaching and institutions right from the primary level to the tertiary level.

Another factor which is important is healthcare. A healthy workforce is not only more productive and efficient but also more creative and innovative. Healthcare should be complete with a focus on wellness, prevention to cure. Besides healthcare, I think that the availability of basic human rights is fundamental to a progressive society. Fundamental human rights are essential for people to achieve their true potential and for a society to develop. For example, a society where people are not able to express themselves freely can certainly not develop and progress.

I believe that out of all the factors listed above, the standard of education is the most important. Education in way determines other factors like economic progress and healthcare and even availability of rights. An educated society would mean an efficient and creative workforce and thus a good economy. Similarly, education is critical to a good healthcare system, in the sense that doctors and nurses need to be educated first before they can treat others. Last but not least, an educated is society is more liberal and democratic and thus more accepting of everyone’s rights.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that although many factors can be used to measure a country’s progress, I consider that level of education to be the most significant.

Also Check:  Download IELTS Answer Sheet for Listening, Reading & Writing

Economic Progress Factors IELTS Essay

Model Answer 4

Nowadays, many experts and global organisations are finding a united definition of a country’s success. It is believed that economic development as GDP growth will illustrate the achievement of a country. Meanwhile, some people put forward the idea that besides this factor, the existence other features that have a stronger impact on that. As far as I am concerned that the latter opinion should receive more support.

First, it is obvious that for most countries, the political institution plays a critical role in creating a country’s all-round development. This is because it might be a momentous leadership promoting the progress of other important areas such as education, economics, equal and safe society, science and technology. If a country exists in an undemocratic regime, it might be able to lead to the corruptible problem, social inequality, and even occurring advocacy groups phenomenon in the political environment and that means the country does not keep pace with the fast-paced development of globalisation and therefore impeding the country’s economic and social growth. This is particularly important in poor countries like Haiti, South Korea, Congo and so forth.

That is not to say that economic progress is not an assessment of a nation’s success. It is due to the fact that economic factor exerts an essential influence on mirroring the successful level of countries in the world. For example, today’s economists and governments have still used GDP, GNP and CPI index in order to estimate countries’ development. However, once a nation gives priority to accelerate the economics, this may lead to increasing the gap between the poor and the rich, high inflation, economy-based crimes, and an unstable society. So, governments should choose a stable growth corresponded to a prosperous society and economy. ieltsxpress

In summary, the country should create sustainable and successful progress in many areas based on the collaborative and democratic institution and thus by making the society more prosperous and happy. Meanwhile, we should not neglect to invest effectively in economic development.

Two Questions Sample IELTS Essay

Model Answer 5

It is true that economic growth is normally considered a strong indicator of a nation’s success. However, many people think, that other factors such as equality and freedom are no less significant. To my way of thinking, I tend to believe that how the disadvantaged are treated tells the most about a nation.

For a variety of reasons, the majority of us equate economic development with success. Perhaps chief among these is that a strong economy is mistakenly viewed as the prerequisite for any advancement in any other field. Although things like the quality of education and medical accessibility need to be backed up by a strong economy, prioritizing economic development often leads to neglecting the imminent needs in the educational and medical sectors. Economic success is by no means the only index of success.

Conversely, a country’s success should be measured in other dimensions such as the quality of life of an average citizen, the success in reducing poverty. An overall economic success does not always guarantee that the wealth created is distributed fairly and equally among all residents.  In developing countries, corruption and exploitation mean that the wealth is in the hands of the privileged minority. This leaves the poor struggling to put food on the table let alone live a decent life.

Importantly, any country’s attitude to its less advantaged citizens is the strongest implication of its success, as this requires not only economic well-being but a great deal of civilization. For example, in most of developed countries, building designs are being modified to allow access to disabled persons, and there are also laws for paid leaves for expecting mothers. Those sorts of things are missed out in developing countries, despite the recent economic successes.

In conclusion, although economic success is critical, there are other key factors to consider when measuring a country’s success. Personally, I think the way the less privileged are looked after is the strongest indicator.

Economic GDP Factors IELTS Essay

Model Answer 6

There is a common belief that development is all about achieving economic growth. If we use this yardstick, western countries are the most developed in the world. Some people, however, believe that economic growth is just one of the many factors that contribute to the development of a nation. I agree with this view. In my opinion, the overall quality of life and the freedom that people enjoy in a country are all important factors to consider.

Some Middle Eastern countries are economically developed; however, they have authoritative governments that give little importance to personal freedom. In many of these countries, people cannot speak about the government or express their opinions on the internet. The plight of their women is even worse. They are deprived of education and many of them don’t even have the right to vote. In my opinion, in spite of their economic growth, these countries cannot be considered developed. ieltsxpress

Also Check: Economic Growth is the only way to End Hunger Essay

Countries in the west are generally considered developed because of their prosperity and improved standards of living. In these countries, too, many people experience loneliness and lead unhappy lives. It is evident that all that prosperity does nothing to improve their lives.

Economic growth is important. People should be able to satisfy their basic necessities and lead healthy and happy lives. However, economic development alone won’t make a nation developed. Safety, happiness and freedom of speech and expression are all important things to consider.

To conclude, economic prosperity is just one of the many factors that determine the success or development of a nation. The overall quality of life is determined by a lot of other factors. These include access to quality education, healthcare, safety and freedom.

Some people think that economic progress is the only way to measure a country’s success, while others think that there are other factors which determine it

Model Answer 7

The relative success of different countries is usually defined in economic terms. There are several other factors, apart from the economy, that could be used to assess a country, and in my opinion, education is the most important of all.

Standards of education, health and individual human rights should certainly be considered when measuring a country’s status. A good education system is vital for the development of any nation, with schools, colleges and universities bearing the responsibility for the quality of future generations of workers. Healthcare provision is also an indicator of the standard of living within a country, and this can be measured by looking at average life expectancy rates or availability of medical services. Finally, human rights and levels of equality could be taken into account. For example, a country in which women do not have the same opportunities as men might be considered less successful than a country with better gender equality.

In my view, a country’s education system should be seen as the most important indicator of its success and level of development. This is because education has a considerable effect on the other two factors mentioned above. It affects people’s health in the sense that doctors and nurses need to be trained, and scientists need to be educated to the highest levels before they can carry out medical research. It also affects the economy in the sense that a well-educated workforce will allow a variety of companies and industries to flourish, leading to trade with other countries, and increased wealth.

In conclusion, nations can be assessed and compared in a variety of ways, but I would argue that the standard of a country’s education system is the best measure of its success.

Economic Progress Country’s Measure

Model Answer 8

The world-famous philosopher Socrates once said,  ‘’The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance’’ . Numerous people commonly believed that economic progress is the exclusive element to evaluate a nation’s success. On the other hand, many individuals think other categories should be observed to measure a country’s success. From my perspective, education is and always will be the backbone of any country’s progress, and other factors such as healthcare, safety, and transportation are significant. Below, the following essay will extend these views with arguments and illustrations.

Firstly, the   quality of life attached to effective public services are crucial factors to measure a country’s success.  Health services, a well-structured transportation system, a clean environment, safety, and diverse job opportunities are vital to ensure the wellness of civilians. If any of those categories is fragmented a vast number of the country’s population could be affected decreasing the quality of the daily workforce. A recent study made by the University of British Columbia found that developing countries victims of white-collar crime and other types of corruption were not inclined to invest properly in their society. Thus, the crime rate was high, the public health score was low, and the country’s environment tended to face higher challenges compared to developed nations.

Secondly, education is the most significant factor to prove economic progress.  Whereas diverse elements are important to develop the quality of life, education is the core of all those factors. Without well-educated citizens, a country can face the absence of high-performing professionals. People without education tend to harm the environment. Likewise, values in illiterate people and low-educated citizens have been scientifically proven not to be strong. Hence, population problems such as overpopulation, crime, and diseases are on a large scale.

In conclusion, education is the main significant factor to measure a country’s success. However, other elements such as transportation, jobs, health, and security are powerful drivers playing a fundamental role in people’s lives.

Ideas for Economic Progress is the only way to measure Nation’s Success IELTS Essay

Check this article:  What are the best measurements of economical growth

Check this:  Why GDP is no longer the most effective measure of economic success

A Healthy Economy should be designed to thrive, not grow | Kate Raworth

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Home → IELTS Writing Task 2

Ielts writing task 2 – economic progress.

Many governments think that economic progress is their most important goal. Some people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a country. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

( 258 Words , 13 Sentences, 4 Paragraphs, Band 9)

People have different views about how governments should measure their countries’ progress. While economic progress is of course essential, I agree with those who believe that other measures of progress are just as important.

There are three key reasons why economic growth is seen as a fundamental goal for countries. Firstly, a healthy economy results in job creation, a high level of employment, and better salaries for all citizens. Secondly, economic progress ensures that more money is available for governments to spend on infrastructure and public services. For example, a government with higher revenues can invest in the country’s transport network, its education system and its hospitals. Finally, a strong economy can help a country’s standing on the global stage, in terms of its political influence and trading power.

However, I would argue that various other forms of progress are just as significant as the economic factors mentioned above. In particular, we should consider the area of social justice, human rights, equality and democracy itself. For example, the treatment of minority groups is often seen as a reflection of the moral standards and level of development of a society. Perhaps another key consideration when judging the progress of a modern country should be how well that country protects the natural environment, and whether it is moving towards environmental sustainability. Alternatively, the success of a nation could be measured by looking at the health, well-being and happiness of its residents.

In conclusion, the economy is obviously a key marker of a country’s success, but social, environmental and health criteria are equally significant.

( NB: Follow the above band 9 writing structure for getting higher band score in the IELTS Exam.)

Related IELTS Resources

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• IELTS Writing Task 2
• IELTS Speaking Part 1, 2 & 3
• IELTS Listening Exercises
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• How to Start IELTS Preparation
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IELTS Writing Task 2 – Preventing climate change

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IELTS Writing Task 2 – Help everyone in the world that needs help

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IELTS Daily Essay Topic: Many governments think that economic progress is their most important goal. Some people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a country.

• Updated on  
• Jan 8, 2024

Q- Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Ans . Economic progress is always considered the primary objective of various governments. This perspective is based on the belief that a strong economy is the foundation for a prosperous nation. However, some people argue that a nation’s development should not solely prioritise economic progress. They must also take into account social and environmental aspects. I firmly advocate for progress on all fronts — economically, socially, and environmentally.

Advocates of economic progress contend that a strong economy forms the foundation of a country. They argue that economic growth leads to more job opportunities, higher living standards, and improved public services. For example countries, like China and India, have experienced advancements in recent decades, resulting in enhanced infrastructure, healthcare systems, and educational opportunities for their citizens.The economic upswing in these nations has not only created a more prosperous environment but has also contributed to a higher quality of life for their populations. The positive outcomes of economic growth extend beyond the financial realm, playing a pivotal role in shaping the overall well-being of a society.

Conversely, there are those who argue that other forms of advancement carry equal significance. They maintain that concentrating solely on economic growth may lead to issues such as inequality and environmental harm. For instance, swift industrialization, a common driver of economic expansion, often contributes to environmental pollution, adversely impacting both public health and biodiversity. Additionally, economic growth does not consistently translate into social progress; in some cases, wealth becomes concentrated within a small elite, leading to social unrest. This highlights the necessity of taking into account not only economic but also environmental and social dimensions to ensure comprehensive and sustainable progress.

In conclusion, while economic progress is crucial, it is equally important for a country to focus on social and environmental progress. A holistic approach to development, which considers all these aspects, is key to building a prosperous and sustainable nation.

Paraphrased Statement: Economic progress is always considered the primary objective of various governments. This perspective is based on the belief that a strong economy is the foundation for a prosperous nation. However, some people argue that a nation’s development should not solely prioritize economic progress.

Thesis Statement: They must also take into account social and environmental aspects. I firmly advocate for progress on all fronts — economically, socially, and environmentally.

Body Paragraph 1-Topic Sentences: Advocates of economic progress contend that a strong economy forms the foundation of a country. They argue that economic growth leads to more job opportunities, higher living standards, and improved public services. For example countries, like China and India, have experienced advancements in recent decades, resulting in enhanced infrastructure, healthcare systems, and educational opportunities for their citizens.

Body Paragraph 1- Supporting Reasons and Explanations: The economic upswing in these nations has not only created a more prosperous environment but has also contributed to a higher quality of life for their populations. The positive outcomes of economic growth extend beyond the financial realm, playing a pivotal role in shaping the overall well-being of a society.

Body Paragraph 2- Topic sentences: Conversely, there are those who argue that other forms of advancement carry equal significance. They maintain that concentrating solely on economic growth may lead to issues such as inequality and environmental harm. 

Body Paragraph 2- Supporting Reasons and Explanations:  For instance, swift industrialization, a common driver of economic expansion, often contributes to environmental pollution, adversely impacting both public health and biodiversity. Additionally, economic growth does not consistently translate into social progress; in some cases, wealth becomes concentrated within a small elite, leading to social unrest. This highlights the necessity of taking into account not only economic but also environmental and social dimensions to ensure comprehensive and sustainable progress.

Conclusion: In conclusion, while economic progress is crucial, it is equally important for a country to focus on social and environmental progress. A holistic approach to development, which considers all these aspects, is key to building a prosperous and sustainable nation.

Vocabulary in Use

Economic progress is always considered the primary objective of various governments. This perspective is based on the belief that a strong economy is the foundation for a prosperous nation . However, some people argue that a nation’s development should not solely prioritize economic progress. They must also take into account social and environmental aspects. I firmly advocate for progress on all fronts — economically, socially, and environmentally.

Conversely, some argue that other forms of advancement carry equal significance. They maintain that concentrating solely on economic growth may lead to issues such as inequality and environmental harm. For instance, swift industrialization, a common driver of economic expansion , often contributes to environmental pollution, adversely impacting both public health and biodiversity. Additionally, economic growth does not consistently translate into social progress; in some cases, wealth becomes concentrated within a small elite , leading to social unrest. This highlights the necessity of taking into account not only economic but also environmental and social dimensions to ensure comprehensive and sustainable progress.

Linkers and Connectors Used

The linkers and connectors used in the essay are as follows:

• “This perspective is based on”
• “They must also take into account”
• “I firmly advocate for”
• “Advocates of economic progress contend that”
• “They argue that”
• “For example”
• “The economic upswing in these nations has not only created”
• “but has also contributed to”
• “Conversely”
• “They maintain that”
• “For instance”
• “Additionally”
• “This highlights the necessity of”
• “In conclusion”
• “it is equally important for”
• “A holistic approach to development, which considers all these aspects, is key to”

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IELTS Writing Task 2 Idea Planning – Economic Progress

Have trouble thinking of ideas for Task 2? This lesson on IELTS Writing Task 2 idea planning can help. If you need to learn the basics of idea planning, it’s a good idea to start from the planning lesson . However, if you’ve already learned the basics, this is a perfect place to continue on from.

The topic in this lesson is on the theme of economic progress and is from Cambridge IELTS 11. Use this planning technique to develop your ability to come up with Task 2 ideas quickly and easy.

Watch the video lesson below:

Why do IELTS Writing Task 2 Idea Planning?

Well, the simple answer is that planning will help you get a better score. Many students have trouble thinking of ideas, and writing lots of plans (10 minutes each) take much less time than writing lots of essays (40 minutes each).

The Question

Many governments think that economic progress is their most important  goal. Some people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a country.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Source: Cambridge IELTS 11

Step 1: Analyze the Question

What kind of question is it?

Discussion Question

What is the general topic?

Measurements of progress for a country

What is the specific topic?

Economics progress vs other forms

What is the question asking?

Are other forms of progress equally important to economic progress for a country?

Step 2: Create the Skeleton Plan

• Introduction : paraphrase topic à opinion = other forms of progress are equally important
• Body 1 Topic: why governments think economic progress is most important
• Body 2 Topic: why some people see other types of progress as important
• Conclusion: re-paraphrase intro and opinion with a couple of extra details

Step 3: Generate Body Paragraph Details

Body Paragraph 1: why governments think economic progress is most important

• Economic progress is measurable
• Governments need money to operate. Economic progress provides that money
• Economic progress can lead to progress in other areas (health, education, etc.)
• Economic progress is the most commonly compared measurement of national status

Body Paragraph 2: why some people see other types of progress as important

• Environmental Health – people experience this everyday, government only sees numbers
• Public Health – money is nothing without staying healthy
• Rich/Poor Divide – Even if country is wealthy, without economic equality people may not be happy

That’s it! Use this planning technique with lots of other Task 2 Questions.

Need some questions for use for IELTS Writing Task 2 Idea Planning? Click here to get our free ebook .

Reader Interactions

March 20, 2018 at 9:45 am

I need IELTS E book, kindly sent me

December 10, 2018 at 2:23 am

how to i can improve my reading point

April 4, 2018 at 4:09 am

Some think that buildings should be constructed with functionality in mind, as it is more important than design. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

June 13, 2018 at 7:39 pm

Need help about listening. How I practice.

June 13, 2018 at 7:40 pm

Need help about speaking.

June 10, 2022 at 1:01 pm

I need speaking couching

August 14, 2018 at 8:38 pm

pls add more videos for Task 2 planning with different topics. by the way your videos are great thanks for sharing them.

August 24, 2018 at 2:50 am

Useful information thanks

September 11, 2018 at 4:59 am

Hello I like your method for answering the question.I have problem to organize my ideas during the test.

September 12, 2018 at 3:59 am

Please email me the ebook.we need to have more tips and clear written examples for us to score 8.0

November 21, 2019 at 3:05 am

But where are the reasons and examples of “Your Own Opinion” … This is also the main question … and you didn’t answer that..

June 18, 2021 at 5:49 am

It’s request to you plzz add more videos for Task 2 planning with different topics. by the way your videos are great thanks for sharing them…

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Many Governments Think That Economic Progress Essay: IELTS Writing Task 2

Updated on Jul 17, 2024, 10:15

The IELTS Writing section assesses candidates' ability to express ideas clearly and coherently through two tasks:  Task 1 involves interpreting data from graphs or charts, while  Task 2  requires responding to an essay prompt. Task 2 prompts, such as "Many governments think that economic progress" demand a well-structured essay that examines causes and suggests solutions with logical reasoning and illustrative examples.

Both  IELTS General Training and Academic versions present a wide range of Task 2 prompts, covering academic and practical topics alike. Despite these differences, Task 2 in both versions evaluates critical thinking and the ability to present structured arguments effectively, requiring candidates to take a clear stance supported by evidence and examples.

While the Academic IELTS typically focuses on formal academic scenarios, the General Training module addresses topics relevant to everyday life contexts. This diversity ensures candidates can demonstrate their proficiency in engaging with both theoretical and practical issues.

Task 2's emphasis on discussing causes and proposing solutions to challenges such as economic progress encourages candidates to think analytically and practically, demonstrating their ability to address real-world problems through coherent and well-supported arguments. After receiving a good  IELTS score , you can apply to countries like the USA ,  UK ,  Australia and  Canada .  

On This Page

1. Many Governments Think That Economic Progress: How to Answer?

Essays must always start with a clear introduction stating the question and your opinion. 

2. Many Governments Think That Economic Progress: Sample Essay

Let's explore essay samples for Many Governments Think That Economic Progress below.

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Many Governments Think That Economic Progress: How to Answer?

Essays must always start with a clear introduction stating the question and your opinion. Each body paragraph should focus on one main idea with examples or arguments. Use transition words to connect your ideas.   

Since this is an essay discussing both views, you must try to strike a balance despite your personal views!   

In the end, you can summarise your main points and repeat your opinion. Keep your writing clear, logical, and accurate, using a range of vocabulary and grammar effectively.

The topic will look like this:   

Many governments think that economic progress is their most important goal. Some people, however, think that other types of progress are equally important for a country. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. Word limit: Make sure you keep it in 250 words!

Here's a more detailed breakdown of how to structure and answer the essay on the topic "Many Governments Think That Economic Progress" in the ' discuss both views ' format:

1. Introduction:  

• Paraphrase the Prompt: Begin by rephrasing the topic to show your understanding.
• Outline the Essay: Briefly mention how you will address both views and state your opinion.

2. Body:  

• Topic Sentence: Introduce the viewpoint that economic progress is paramount.
• Explanation: Explain why governments prioritise economic progress.
• Arguments: Provide arguments supporting this viewpoint.  
• Topic Sentence: Introduce the contrasting viewpoint that other forms of progress are equally important.
• Explanation: Describe what these other forms of progress might entail (e.g., social, environmental, cultural).
• Arguments: Provide arguments supporting the importance of these other forms of progress.  
• Topic Sentence: State your opinion on which type of progress you believe is more important or how both can be balanced.
• Reasons: Provide reasons or criteria that support your opinion.
• Balance: Discuss how governments can balance economic progress with other forms of progress, if relevant.

3. Conclusion:  

• Summarise Both Views: Recap the main points discussed regarding economic progress versus other types of progress.
• Reaffirm Your Opinion: Restate your opinion and briefly summarise why you hold that stance.

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Many Governments Think That Economic Progress: Sample Essay

Introduction:   

Many governments prioritise economic progress as a cornerstone of national policy, viewing it as essential for fostering prosperity and competitiveness on the global stage. This essay explores why economic progress is a focal point for governments and proposes solutions to mitigate potential challenges associated with this approach. Governments often face dilemmas in balancing economic growth with social and environmental sustainability, necessitating thoughtful policies and strategies.

Body:   

Governments emphasise economic progress primarily to enhance national wealth and elevate living standards. Economic growth stimulates job creation, attracts foreign investments, and funds critical infrastructure projects, all contributing to overall national development. However, a myopic focus on GDP growth alone can lead to income inequality, environmental degradation, and social unrest. Such pitfalls undermine long-term sustainability and societal well-being.

To address these challenges, governments should adopt policies that promote inclusive growth and sustainable development. By investing in education and healthcare, governments can improve human capital and ensure that economic benefits reach all segments of society. Furthermore, prioritising renewable energy and environmental conservation initiatives can mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of rapid economic expansion. Balancing economic goals with social and environmental considerations ensures holistic development and resilience against future crises. This integrated approach is crucial for fostering long-term prosperity and stability.

Conclusion:   

In conclusion, while economic progress is crucial for national advancement, it should not come at the expense of social equity and environmental sustainability. Governments must adopt a comprehensive approach integrating economic, social, and environmental objectives to achieve balanced and inclusive growth. By doing so, they can ensure that economic progress translates into lasting benefits for all present and future citizens. 

Also read: IELTS Writing Vocabulary 

IELTS Writing Practice Test

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Q. How is the IELTS Writing section scored, and what are the criteria for assessment?

Ans.  The IELTS Writing section is scored based on four criteria: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Each criterion is weighted equally. Task Achievement assesses how well the test-taker addresses the task, Coherence and Cohesion evaluates the organisation and connectivity of the response, Lexical Resource measures the range of vocabulary used, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy focuses on the command of grammar.

Q. What are the key differences between IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training writing tasks?

Ans.  In IELTS Academic writing, task 1 requires the test taker to summarise, describe, or explain visual information, such as charts, graphs, or diagrams. In contrast, in IELTS General Training writing, task 1 involves letter writing based on a given situation or scenario. Additionally, for task 2 in both modules, the topics and content may differ.

Q. What are some effective strategies for managing time during the IELTS Writing section, especially for Task 2 essay writing?

Ans. To manage your time effectively during the IELTS Writing Task 2, it's essential to budget your time wisely. Allocate around 5 minutes for planning, 35 minutes for writing, and 5 minutes for reviewing and making any necessary revisions. Stick to the recommended essay structure with a clear introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and a concise conclusion. Practice writing under timed conditions to improve your speed and ensure that you can complete the essay within the given timeframe.

What is economic growth? And why is it so important?

The goods and services that we all need are not just there – they need to be produced – and growth means that their quality and quantity increase..

Good health, a place to live, access to education, nutrition, social connections, respect, peace, human rights, a healthy environment, and happiness. These are just some of the many aspects we care about in our lives.

At the heart of many of these aspects that we care about are needs for which we require particular goods and services . Think of those that are needed for the goals on the list above – the health services from nurses and doctors, the home you live in, or the teachers who provide education.

Poverty, prosperity, and growth are often measured in monetary terms, most commonly as people’s income. But while monetary measures have some important advantages, they have the big disadvantage that they are abstract. In the worst case, monetary measures – like GDP per capita – are so abstract that we forget what they are actually about: people’s access to goods and services.

The point of this text is to show why economic growth is important and how the abstract monetary measures tell us about the reality of people’s material living conditions around the world and throughout history:

• In the first part, I want to explain what economic growth is and why it is so difficult to measure.
• In the second part, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of several measures of growth, and you will find the latest data on several of these measures so that we can see what they tell us about how people’s material living conditions have changed.

What are these goods and services that I’m talking about?

Have a look around yourself right now. Many of the things you see are products that were produced by someone so that you can use them: the trousers you are wearing, the device you are reading this on, the electricity that powers it, the furniture around you, the toilet that is nearby, the sewage system it is connected to, the bus or car or bicycle you took to get where you are, the food you had this morning, the medications you will receive when you get sick, every window in your home, every shirt in your wardrobe, and every book on your shelf.

At some point in the past, many of these products were not available. The majority did not have access to the most basic goods and services they needed. A recent study on the history of global poverty estimates that just two centuries ago, roughly three-quarters of the world "could not afford a tiny space to live, food that would not induce malnutrition, and some minimum heating capacity.” 1

Let’s look at the history of the last item on that list above, books.

A few centuries ago, the only way to produce a book was for a scribe to copy it word-for-word by hand. Book production was a slow process; it took a scribe about eight months of daily work to produce a single copy of the Bible. 2

It was so laborious that only very few books were produced. The chart shows the estimates of historians. 3

But then, in the 15th century, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg combined the idea of movable letters with the mechanism that he knew from the wine presses in his hometown. He developed the printing press. Gutenberg developed a new production technology, and it changed things dramatically. Instead of spending months to produce one book, a worker was now able to produce several books a day.

As the printing press spread across Europe, book production soared. Books, which were previously only available to a tiny elite, became available to more and more people.

This is one example of how growth is possible and what economic growth is : an increase in the production of goods and services that people produce for each other.

A list of goods and services that people produce for each other

Before we get to a more detailed definition of economic growth, it’s helpful to remind ourselves of the astonishingly wide range of goods and services that people produce. I think this is helpful because measures of economic output can easily become abstract. This abstraction means we easily lose the mental connection to the goods and services such measures actually talk about.

This list of goods and services isn’t meant as a definitive list, but it helped me to think about the relevance of poverty and growth: 4

At home: Light in your home at night; the sewage system; a shower; vacuum cleaner; fridge; heating; air conditioning; electricity; windows; a toilet – even a flush toilet; soap; a balcony or a garden; running water; warm water; cutlery and dishes; a hut – or even a warm apartment or house; an oven; sewing machine; a stove (that doesn’t poison you ); carpet; toilet paper; trash bags; music recordings or even online streaming of the world’s music and film; garbage collection; radio; television; a washing machine; 5 furniture; telephone; a comfortable bed, and a room for one’s own.

Food: The most fundamental need is to have enough food. For much of human history, a large share of people suffered from hunger , and millions still do .

But we also need to have a richer and more varied diet to get all of the nutrients we need. Unfortunately, billions still suffer from micronutrient deficiency .

Also, think of clean drinking water; reliable markets and stores with a wide range of available goods; food that rarely poisons you (pasteurized milk, for example); spices; tea and coffee; kitchen utensils and practical ingredients (from a bag of flour to canned soups or a yogurt); chocolate and sweets; fresh fruit and vegetables; bread; take-away food or the possibility to go to a restaurant; ways to protect your food from spoiling (from the cold chain that delivers the goods to the cellophane to wrap it with); wine or beer; fertilizer ( very important); and tractors to work the fields.

Knowledge: Education from primary up to university level; books; data that allows us to understand the world around us; newspapers; vocational training; kindergartens; and scientific knowledge to understand ourselves and the world around us.

Infrastructure: Public transportation with buses, subways, and trains; roads; paved roads; airplanes; bridges; financial services (including bank accounts, ATMs, and credit cards); cities; a network of competent workers that can help you to fix problems; postal services (that delivers fast); national parks; street cleaning; public swimming pools (even private pools); firefighters; parks; online shopping; weather forecasts; and a waste management system.

Tools and technologies: Pencils, ballpoint pens, and paper; lawnmowers; cars; car mechanics; bicycles; power tools like drills (even battery-powered ones); a watch; computers and laptops; smartphones (with GPS and a good camera); being able to stay in touch with distant friends or family members (or even visiting them); GPS; batteries; telephones and mobiles; video calls; WiFi; and the internet right here.

Social services: Caretakers for those who are disabled, sick, or elderly; protection from crime; non-profit organizations financed by the public, by donations or by philanthropies; insurance (against many different risks); and a legal system with judges and lawyers that implement the rule of law.

There is also a wide range of transfer payments, which in themselves are not services (they are transfers) but which become more affordable as a society becomes more prosperous: sick leave and disability benefits; unemployment benefits; and being able to help others with a regular donation of some of your income to an effective charity . 6

Life and free time : tents; travel and holidays; surfboards; skis; board games; hotels; playgrounds; children’s toys; courses to learn hobbies (from painting to musical instruments or courses on the environment around us); a football; pets; the cinema, theater or a music concert; clothes (even comfortable and good-looking ones that keep you warm and protect you from the rain); shoes (even shoes for different purposes); shoe repair; the contraceptive pill and the ability to choose if and when to have children; sports classes from rock climbing to pilates and yoga; cigarettes (not all goods that people produce for each other are good for them); 7 a musical instrument; a camera; and parties to celebrate life.

Health and staying well: Dentists; antibiotics; surgeries; anesthesia; mental health care from psychologists and psychiatrists; vaccines; public sewage; a haircut; a massage; midwives; ambulances; modern medicine; band-aids; pharmaceutical drugs; sanitary pads; toothbrushes; dental floss (some do floss); disinfectants; glasses; sunglasses; contact lenses; hearing aids; and hospitals – including very well-equipped, modern hospitals that offer CT scans, which include intensive care units and allow heart or brain surgery or organ transplants.

Specific needs and wishes: Most of the products listed above are generally helpful to people. But often, the goods and services that are most important to one individual are very specific.

As I’m writing this, I have a big cast on my left leg after I broke it. These days, I depend on products that I had no use for just three weeks ago. To move around, I need two long crutches, and to prevent thrombosis, I need to inject a blood thinner every day. After I broke my leg, I needed the service of nurses and doctors. They had to rely on a range of medical equipment, such as X-ray machines. To get back on my feet, I might need the service of physiotherapists.

We all have very specific needs or wishes for particular goods and services. Some needs arise from bad luck, like an injury. Others are due to a new phase in life – think of the specific goods and services you need when you have a baby or when you take care of an elderly person. And yet others are due to specific interests – think of the needs of a fisherman, or a pianist, or a painter.

All of these goods and services do not just magically appear. They need to be produced. At some point in the past, the production of most of them was zero, and even the most essential ones were extremely scarce. So, if you want to know what economic growth means for your life, look at the list above.

What is economic growth?

So, how can we define what economic growth is?

A definition that can be found in so many publications that I don’t know which one to quote is that economic growth is “an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population over a period of time.”

The definition in the Oxford Dictionary is almost identical: “Economic growth is the increase in the production of goods and services per head of population over a stated period of time”. And the definition in the Cambridge Dictionary is similar. It defines growth as “an increase in the economy of a country or an area, especially of the value of goods and services the country or area produces.”

In the following footnote, you find more definitions. Bringing these definitions together and taking into account the economic literature more broadly, I suggest the following definition: Economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and services that a society produces.

I prefer a definition that is slightly longer than most others. If you want a shorter definition, you can speak of ‘products’ rather than ‘goods and services’, and you can speak of ‘value’ rather than mentioning both the quantity and quality aspects separately.

The most important change in quantity is from zero to one when a new product becomes available. Many of the most important changes in history became possible when new goods and services were developed; think of antibiotics, vaccines, computers, or the telephone.

You find more thoughts on the definition of growth in the footnote. 8

What are economic goods and services?

Many definitions of economic growth simply speak of the production of ‘goods and services’ collectively. This sidesteps a key difficulty in its definition and measurement. Economic growth is not concerned with all goods and services but with a subset of them: economic goods and services.

In everything we do – even in our most mundane activities – we continuously ‘produce’ goods and services in some form. Early in the morning, once we’ve brushed our teeth and made ourselves toast, we have already produced one service and one good. Should we count the tooth-brushing and the toast-making towards the economic production of the country we live in? The question of where to draw the line isn’t easy to answer. But we have to draw the line somewhere. If we don’t, we end up with a concept of production that is so broad that it becomes meaningless; we’d produce a service with every breath we take and every time we scratch our nose.

The line that we have to draw to define the economic goods and services is called the ‘production boundary’. The sketch illustrates the idea. The production boundary defines those goods and services that we consider when we speak about economic growth.

For a huge number of goods or services, there is no question that they are of the ‘economic’ type. But for some of them, it can be complicated to decide on which side of the production boundary they fall. One example is the question of whether the production of illegal goods should be included. Another is whether production within a household should be included – should we consider it as economic production if we grow tomatoes in our backyard and make soup from them? Different authors and different measurement frameworks have given different answers to these questions. 9

There are some characteristics that are helpful in deciding on which side of the boundary a particular product falls. 10 Economic goods and services are those that can be produced and that are scarce in relation to the demand for them. They stand in contrast to free goods, like sunlight, which are abundant, or those many important aspects in our lives that cannot be produced, like friendships. 11 Our everyday language has this right: we don’t refer to the sun or our friendships as a good or service that we ‘produce’.

An economic good or service is provided by people to each other as a solution to a problem they are faced with, and this means that they are considered useful by the person who demands it.

A last characteristic that helps decide whether you are looking at an economic product is “delegability”. An activity is considered to be production in an economic sense if it can be delegated to someone else. This would include many of the goods and services on that long list we considered earlier but would exclude your breathing, for example.

Because economic goods are scarce in relation to the demand for them, human effort is required to produce them. 12 A shorter way of defining growth is, therefore, to say that it is an increase in the production of those products that people produce for each other.

The majority of goods and services on that long list above are uncontroversially of the economic type – everything from the light bulbs and furniture in your home to the roads and bridges that connect your home with the rest of the world. They are scarce in relation to the demand for them and have to be produced by someone; their production is delegable, and they are considered useful by those who want them.

It’s worth recognizing that many of the difficulties in defining the production boundary arise from the effort to make measures of economic production as comparable as possible.

To give just one concrete example of the type of considerations that make the discussion about specific definitions so difficult, let’s look at how the production boundary is drawn in the housing sector.

Imagine two countries that are identical except for one aspect: home ownership. In Country A, everyone rents their homes, and the total sum of annual rent amounts to €2 billion per year. In Country B, everyone owns their own home, and no one pays rent. To provide housing is certainly an economic service, but if we only counted monetary transactions, then we would get the false impression that the value of goods and services in Country A is €2 billion higher than in Country B. To avoid such misjudgment, the production boundary includes the housing services that are provided without any monetary transactions. In National Accounts, statisticians take into account the “imputed rental value of owner-occupied housing” – those households who own their home get assigned an imputed rental value. In the imagined scenario, these imputed rents would amount to €2 billion in Country B so that the prosperity of people in these two countries would be judged to be identical.

It is the case more broadly that National Account figures (like GDP) do include important non-market goods and services that are not included in household survey measures of people’s income. GDP does not only include the housing services by owner-occupied housing but also the provision of most goods and services that are provided by the government or nonprofit institutions.

How can we measure economic growth?

Many discussions about economic growth are extraordinarily confusing. People often talk past one another.

I believe the key reason for this is that the discussion of what economic growth is gets muddled up with how it is measured .

While it is straightforward enough to define what growth is, measuring growth is very, very difficult.

In the worst cases, measures of growth are mixed up with a definition of growth. Growth is often measured as an increase in income or inflation-adjusted GDP per capita. But these measures are not the definition of it – just like life expectancy is a measure of population health but is certainly not the definition of population health.

To see how difficult it is to measure growth, take a moment to think about how you would measure it. How would you determine whether the quantity and quality of all economic goods and services produced by a society increased or decreased over time?

Finding a measure means that you have to find a way to express a huge amount of relevant information in a single metric. As the sketch shows, you have to first measure the quantity and quality of all the many, many goods and services that get produced and then find a way to aggregate all of these measurements into one summarizing metric. No matter what measure you propose for such a difficult task, there will always be problems and shortcomings in any proposal you might make.

In the following section, I will show four possible ways of measuring growth and present some data for each of them to see how they can inform us about the history of material living conditions.

Measuring economic growth by tracking access to particular goods and services

One possible way to measure growth is to make a list of some specific products that people want and to see what share of the population has access to them.

We do this very often at Our World in Data . The chart here shows the share of the world population that has access to four basic resources. All of these statistics measure some particular aspect of economic growth.

You can switch this chart to any country in the world via the “Change country” option. You will find that, judged by this metric, some countries achieved rapid growth – like Indonesia – while others only saw very little growth, like Chad.

The advantage of measuring growth in this way is that it is concrete. It makes clear what exactly is growing, and it’s clear which particular goods and services people gain access to.

The downside is that it only captures a small part of economic growth. There are many other goods and services that people want in addition to water, electricity, sanitation, and cooking technology. 13

You could, of course, expand this approach of measuring growth to many more goods and services, but this is usually not done for both practical and ethical considerations:

One practical reason is that a list of all the products that people value would be extremely long. Keeping lists that track people’s access to all products would be a daunting task: hundreds of different toothbrushes, thousands of different dentists, hundreds of thousands of different dishes in different restaurants, and many millions of different books. 14 If you wanted to measure growth across all goods and services in this way, you’d soon employ half the country in the statistical office.

In practice, any attempt to measure growth as access to particular products, therefore, means that you look only at a relatively small number of very particular goods and services that statisticians or economists are interested in. This is problematic for ethical reasons. It should not be up to the statisticians or economists to determine which few products should be considered valuable.

You might have realized this problem already when you read my list at the beginning of this text. You might have disagreed with the things that I put on that list and thought that some other goods and services were missing. This is why it is important to track incomes and not just access to particular goods: measuring people’s income is a way of measuring the options that they have rather than the choices that they make. It respects people’s judgment to decide for themselves what they find most important for their lives.

On our site, you find many more such metrics of growth that capture whether people have access to particular goods and services:

• This chart shows the share of US households having access to specific technologies.
• This chart shows the share that has health insurance.
• This chart shows access to schools.

Measuring economic growth by tracking the ratio between people’s income and the prices of particular goods and services

To measure the options that a person’s income represents, we have to compare their income with the prices of the goods and services that they want. We have to look at the ratio between income and prices.

The chart here does this for one particular product – books – and brings us back to the history of growth in the publishing sector that we started with. 15 Shown is the ratio between the average income that a worker receives and the price of a book. It shows how long the average worker had to work to buy one book. Note that this data is plotted on a logarithmic axis.

Before the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, the price was often as high as several months of work. The fact that books were unaffordable for almost everyone should not be surprising. It corresponds to what we’ve seen earlier that it took a scribe several months to produce a single book.

The chart also shows how this changed when the printing press increased the productivity of publishing. As the labor required to produce a book declined from many months of work to less than a day, the price fell from months of wages to mere hours.

This shows us how an innovation in technology raises productivity and how an increase in production makes it more affordable. How it increases the options that people have.

Global inequality: How do incomes compare in countries around the world?

In the previous section, we measured growth as the ratio between income and the price of one particular good. But of course, we could do the same for all the many goods and services that people want. This ratio – the ratio between the nominal income that people receive and the prices that people have to pay for goods and services – is called ‘real income’ . 16

Real income = Nominal income / price of goods and services

Real income grows when people’s nominal income increases or when the prices of goods and services decrease.

In contrast to many of the other metrics on Our World in Data, a person’s real income does not matter for its own sake but because it is a means to an end. A means to many ends, in fact.

Economic growth – measured as an increase in people’s real income – means that the ratio between people’s income and the prices of what they can buy is increasing: goods and services become more affordable, and people become less poor. It is because a person has more choices as their income grows that economists care so much about these monetary measures of prosperity.

The two most prominent measures of real income are GDP per capita and people’s incomes, as determined through household surveys.

They are shown in this chart.

Before we get back to the question of economic growth, let’s see what these measures of real income tell us about the economic inequality in the world today.

Both measures show that global inequality is very large. In a rich country like Denmark, an average person can purchase goods and services for $54 a day, while the average Ethiopian can only afford goods and services that cost $3 per day.

Both measures of real incomes in this chart are measured in international dollars, which means that they take into account the level of prices in each country (using purchasing power parity conversion factors). This price adjustment is done in such a way that one international-$ is equivalent to the purchasing power of one US-$ in the US . An income of int.-$3 in Ethiopia, for example, means that it allows you to purchase goods and services in Ethiopia that would cost US-$3 in the US . All dollar values in this text are given in international dollars, even though I often shorten it to just the $-sign.

If you are living in a rich country and you want to have a sense of what it means to live in a poor country – where incomes are 20 times lower – you can imagine that the prices for everything around you suddenly increase 20-fold. 17 If all the things you buy suddenly get 20-times more expensive your real income is 20-times lower. A loaf of bread doesn’t cost $2 but $40, a pair of jeans costs $400, and an old car costs $40,000. If you ask yourself how these price increases would change your daily consumption and your day-to-day life, you can get a sense of what it means to live in a poor country.

The two shown measures of real income differ:

• The data on the vertical axis is based on surveys in which researchers go from house to house and ask people about their economic situation. In some countries, people are asked about their income, while in other countries, people are asked about their expenditure – expenditure is income minus savings. In poor countries, these two measures are close to each other since poor people do not have the chance to save much.
• On the other hand, GDP per capita starts at the aggregate level and divides the income of the entire economy by the number of people in that country. GDP per capita is higher than per capita survey income because GDP is a more comprehensive measure of income. As we’ve discussed before, it includes an imputed rental value of owner-occupied housing and other differences, such as government expenditure.

Income as a measure of economic prosperity is much more abstract than the metrics we looked at previously. The comparison of incomes of people around the world in this scatterplot measures options, not choices. It shows us that the economic options for billions of people are very low. The majority of the world lives on very low incomes of less than $20, $10, or even $5 per day. In the next section, we’ll see how poverty has changed over time.

• GDP per capita vs. Daily income of the poorest 10%
• GDP per capita vs. Daily average income

Global poverty and growth: How have incomes changed around the world?

Economic growth, as we said before, is an increase in the production of the quantity and quality of the economic goods and services that a society produces. The total income in a society corresponds to the total sum of goods and services the society produces – everyone’s spending is someone else’s income. This means that the average income corresponds to the level of average production, so that the average income in a society increases when the production of goods and services increases.

Average production = average income

In this final section, let’s see how incomes have changed over time, first as documented in survey incomes and then via GDP per capita.

Measuring economic growth by tracking incomes as reported in household surveys

The chart shows the income of people around the world over time, as reported in household surveys. It shows the share of the world population that lives below different poverty lines: from extremely low poverty lines up to $30 per day, which corresponds to notions of poverty in high-income countries .

Many of the poorest people in the world rely on subsistence farming and do not have a monetary income. To take this into account and make a fair comparison of their living standards, the statisticians who produce these figures estimate the monetary value of their home production and add it to their income.

Again, the prices of goods and services are taken into account: these are measures of real incomes. As explained before, incomes are adjusted for price differences between countries, and they are also adjusted for inflation. As a consequence of these two adjustments, incomes are expressed in international dollars in 2017 prices, which means that these income measures express what you would have been able to buy with US dollars in the US in 201 7.

Global economic growth can be seen in this chart as an increasing share of the population living on higher incomes. In 2000 two thirds of the world lived on less than $6.85 per day. In the following 19 years, this share fell by 22 percentage points.

In 2020 and 2021 — during the economic recession that followed the pandemic — the size of the world economy declined, and the share of people in poverty increased . As soon as global data for this period is available, we will update this chart.

The data shows that global poverty has declined, no matter what poverty line you choose. It also shows that the majority of the world still lives on very low incomes. As we’ve seen, we can describe the same reality from the production side: the global production of the goods and services that people want has increased, but there is still not enough production of even very basic products. Most people in the world do not have access to them.

An advantage of household survey data over GDP per capita is that it captures the inequality of incomes within a country. You can explore this inequality with this chart by switching to see the data for an individual country via the ‘Change country’ button.

Measuring economic growth by tracking GDP per capita

GDP per capita is a broader measure of real income, and in contrast to survey income, it also takes government expenditures into account. A lot of thinking has gone into the construction of this very prominent metric so that it is comparable not only over time but also across countries. This makes it especially useful as a measure to understand the economic inequality in the world, as we’ve seen above. 18

Another advantage of this measure is that historians have reconstructed estimates of GDP per capita that go back many centuries. This historical research is an extremely laborious task , and researchers have dedicated many years of work to these reconstructions. The ‘Maddison Project’ brings together these long-run reconstructions from various researchers, and thanks to these efforts, we have a good understanding of how incomes have changed over time.

The chart shows how average incomes in different world regions have changed over the last two centuries. Looking at the latest data, you see again the very large inequality between different parts of the world today. You now also see the history of how we got here: small increases in production in some world regions and very large increases in those regions where people have the highest incomes today.

One of the very first countries to achieve sustained economic growth was the United Kingdom. In this chart, we see the reconstructions of GDP per capita in the UK over the last centuries.

It is no accident that the shape of this chart is very similar to the chart on book production at the beginning of this text – very low and almost flat for many generations and then quickly rising. Both of these developments are driven by changes in production.

Average income corresponds to average production, and societies around the world were able to produce very few goods and services in the past. There were no major exceptions to this reality. As we see in this chart, global inequality was much lower than today: the majority of people around the world were very poor.

To get a sense of what this means, you can again take the approach we’ve used to understand the inequality in the world today. When incomes in today’s rich countries were 20 times lower, it was as if all the prices around you today would suddenly increase 20-fold. But in addition to this, you have to consider that all the goods and services that were developed since then disappeared – no bicycle, no internet, no antibiotics. All that’s left for you are the goods and services of the 17th century, but all of them are 20 times more expensive than today. The majority of people around the world, including in today’s richest countries, live in deep poverty.

Just as we’ve seen in the history of book production, this changed once new production technologies were introduced. The printing press was an exceptionally early innovation in production technology; most innovations happened in the last 250 years. The starting point of this rise out of poverty is called the Industrial Revolution.

The printing press made it possible to produce more books. The many innovations that made up the Industrial Revolution made it possible to increase the production of many goods and services. Compare the effort that it takes for a farmer to reap corn with a scythe to the possibilities of a farmer with a tractor or a combined harvester, or think of the technologies that made overland travel faster – from walking on foot to traveling in a horse buggy to taking the train or car; or think of the effort it took to build those roads that the buggies once traveled on with the modern machinery that allows us to produce the corresponding public infrastructure today .

The production of a myriad of different goods and services followed trajectories very similar to the production of books – flat and low in the past and then steeply increasing. The rise in average income that we see in this chart is the result of the aggregation of all these production increases.

In the past, before societies achieved economic growth, the only way for anyone to become richer was for someone else to become poorer; the economy was a zero-sum game. In a society that achieves economic growth, this is no longer the case. When average incomes increase, it becomes possible for people to become richer without someone else becoming poorer.

This transition from a zero-sum to a positive-sum economy is the most important change in economic history (I wrote about it here ) and made it possible for entire societies to leave the extreme poverty of the past behind.

Conclusion: The history of global poverty reduction has just begun

The chart shows the global history of extreme poverty and economic growth.

In the top left panel, you can see how global poverty has declined as incomes increased; in the other eight panels, you see the same for all world regions separately. The starting point of each trajectory shows the data for 1820 and tells us that two centuries ago, the majority of people lived in extreme poverty, no matter where in the world they were at home.

Back then, it was widely believed that widespread poverty was inevitable. But this turned out to be wrong. The trajectories show how incomes and poverty have changed in each world region. All regions achieved growth – the goods and services that people need saw their production and quality increase – and the share living in extreme poverty declined. 19

This historical research was done by Michail Moatsos and is based on the ‘cost of basic needs’-approach as suggested by Robert Allen (2017) and recommended by the late Tony Atkinson. 20 The name ‘extreme poverty’ is appropriate as this measure is based on an extremely low poverty threshold. It takes us back to what I mentioned at the very beginning; this historical research tells us – as the author puts it – that three-quarters of the world "could not afford a tiny space to live, food that would not induce malnutrition, and some minimum heating capacity.”

Since then, all world regions have made progress against extreme poverty – some much earlier than others – but in particular, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the share of people living in deep poverty is still very high.

The last two centuries were the first time in human history that societies have achieved sustained economic growth, and the decline of global poverty is one of the most important achievements in history. But it is still a very long way to go.

This is what we see in this final chart. The red line shows the share of people living in extreme poverty that we just discussed. Additionally, you now also see the share living on less than $3.65, $6.85, and $30 per day. 21

The world today is very unequal, and the majority of the world still lives in poverty: 47% live on less than $6.85 per day, and 84% live on less than $30. Even after two centuries of progress, we are still in the early stages. The history of global poverty reduction has only just begun.

That the world has made substantial progress but nevertheless still has a long way to go is the case for many of the world’s very large problems. I’ve written before that all three statements are true at the same time: The world is much better, the world is awful, and the world can be much better. This is very much the case for global poverty. The world is much less poor than in the past, but it is still very poor, and it remains one of the largest problems we face.

Some writers suggest we can end poverty by simply reducing global inequality. This is not the case. I’m very much in favor of reducing global inequality, and I hope I do what I can to contribute to this. But it is important to be clear that a reduction of inequality alone would still mean that billions around the world would live in very poor conditions. Those who don’t see the importance of growth are not aware of the extent of global poverty. The production of many crucial goods and services has to increase if we want to end it. How much economic growth is needed to achieve this? This is the question I answered in this recent text .

To solve the problems we face, it is not enough to increase overall production. We also need to make good decisions about which goods and services we want to produce more of and which ones we want less of. Growth doesn’t just have a rate, it also has a direction, and the direction we choose matters – for our own happiness and for achieving a sustainable future .

I hope this text was helpful in making clear what economic growth is. It is necessary to remind ourselves of that because we mostly talk about poverty and growth in monetary terms. The monetary measures have the disadvantage that they are abstract, perhaps so abstract that we even forget what growth is actually about and why it is so important. The goods and services that we all need are not just there – they need to be produced – and economic growth means that the quality and quantity of these goods and services increase, from the food that we eat to the public infrastructure we rely on.

The history of economic growth is the history of how societies leave widespread poverty behind by finding ways to produce more of the goods and services that people need – all the very many goods and services that people produce for each other: look around you now.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Joe Hasell and Hannah Ritchie for very helpful comments on draft versions of this article.

Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. This article draws on data and research discussed in our topic pages on Economic Inequality , Global Poverty , and Economic Growth .

Version history: In October 2023, I copy-edited this article; it was a minor update, and nothing substantial was changed.

Michail Moatsos (2021) – Global extreme poverty: Present and past since 1820. Published in OECD (2021), How Was Life? Volume II: New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820 , OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3d96efc5-en .

At the time when material prosperity was so poor, living conditions were extremely poor in general; close to half of all children died .

Historian Gregory Clark reports the estimate that scribes were able to copy about 3,000 words of plain text per day.

See Clark (2007) – A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Clark (2007). In it, Clark quotes his earlier working paper with Patricia Levin as the source of these estimates. Gregory Clark and Patricia Levin (2001) – “How Different Was the Industrial Revolution? The Revolution in Printing, 1350–1869.”

There are about 760,000 words in the bible (it differs between various translations and languages; here is an overview of some translations).

This implies that the production of one copy of the Bible meant 253.3 days (8.3 months) of daily work.

Copying the text was not the only step in the production process for which productivity was low. The ink had to be made, parchment had to be produced and cut, and many other steps involved laborious work.

Wikipedia’s article about scribes reports sources that estimate that the production time per bible was even longer than 8 months.

Clark himself states in the same publication that “Prior to that innovation, books had to be copied by hand, with copyists on works with just plain text still only able to copy 3,000 words per day. Producing one copy of the Bible at this rate would take 136 man-days.” Since the product of 136 and 3000 is only 408,000, it is unclear to me how Clark has arrived at this estimate – 408,000 words are fewer words than in the Tanakh and other versions of the bible.

The data is taken from Eltjo Buringh and Jan Luiten Van Zanden (2009) – Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, a Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries. In The Journal of Economic History Vol. 69, No. 2 (June 2009), pp. 409-445. Online here .

Western Europe in this study is the area of today’s Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Poland.

On the history and economics of book production, see also the historical work of Jeremiah Dittmar.

I’ve relied on several sources to produce this list. One source was the simple descriptions of the consumption bundles that are relied upon for CPI measurement – like this one from Germany’s statistical office . And I have also relied on the national accounts themselves.

This list is also inspired partly by this list of Gwern and I’m also grateful for the feedback that I got via Twitter to earlier versions of this list. [ Here I shared the list on Twitter ]

This is Hans Rosling’s talk on the magic of the washing machine – worth watching if you haven’t seen it.

Of course all of these transfer payments have a service component to them, someone is managing the payment of the disability benefits etc.

Because smoking causes a large amount of suffering and death I do not find cigarettes valuable, but my opinion is not what matters for a list of goods and services that people produce for each other. Whether some good is considered to be part of the domestic product depends on whether it is a good that some people want, not whether you or I want it. More on this below.

Very similar to the definitions given above is the definition that Kimberly Amadeo gives: “Economic growth is an increase in the production of goods and services over a specific period.”

“Economic growth is an increase in the production of economic goods and services, compared from one period of time to another” is the definition at Investopedia .

Alternatively, to my definition, I think it can be useful to think of economic growth as not directly concerned with the output as such but with the capacity to produce this output. The NASDAQ’s glossary defines growth in that way: “An increase in the nation's capacity to produce goods and services.”

Wikipedia defines economic growth as follows: “Economic growth can be defined as the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time.” Definitions that are based on how growth is measured strike me as wrong – just like life expectancy is a measure of population health and hardly the definition of population health. I will get back to this mistake further below in this text.

An aspect that I emphasize more explicitly than others is the quality of the goods and services. People obviously do just care about the number of goods, and in the literature on growth, the measurement of changes in quality is a central question. Many definitions speak more broadly about the ‘value’ of the goods and services that are produced, but I think it is worth emphasizing that growth is also concerned with a rise in the quality of goods and services.

OECD – Measuring the Non-Observed Economy: A Handbook .

The relevant numbers are not small. For the US alone, “illegal drugs add $108 billion to measured nominal GDP in 2017, illegal prostitution adds $10 billion, illegal gambling adds $4 billion, and theft from businesses adds $109 billion” if they were to be included in the US National Accounts. This is according to the report by Rachel Soloveichik (2019) – Including Illegal Activity in the U.S. National Economic Accounts . Published by the BEA.

Ironmonger (2001) – Household Production. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Pages 6934-6939. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/03964-4

Or for some longer run data on the US: Danit Kanal and Joseph Ted Kornegay (2019) – Accounting for Household Production in the National Accounts: An Update, 1965–2017 . In the Survey of Current Business.

Helpful references that discuss how the production boundary is drawn (and how it changed over time) are: Lequiller and Blades – Understanding National Accounts (available in various editions) Diane Coyle (2016) – GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691169859/gdp

The definition of the production boundary by Statistics Finland

Itsuo Sakuma (2013) – The Production Boundary Reconsidered. In The Review of Income and Wealth. Volume 59, Issue 3; Pages 556-567.

Diane Coyle (2017) – Do-it-Yourself Digital: The Production Boundary and the Productivity Puzzle. ESCoE Discussion Paper 2017-01, Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2986725

A more general way of thinking about free goods and services is to consider them as those for which the supply is hugely greater than the demand.

Their production, therefore, has an opportunity cost, which means that if someone obtains an economic good, someone is giving up on something for it – this can either be the person themselves or society more broadly. Free goods, in contrast, are provided with zero opportunity cost to society.

It is also the case that the international statistics on these measures often have very low cutoffs for what it means ‘to have access’; this is, for example, the case for what it means to have access to energy.

10 years ago, Google counted there were 129,864,880 different books, and since then, the number has increased further by many thousands of new books every day.

This chart is from Jeremiah Dittmar and Skipper Seabold (2019) – New Media New Knowledge – How the printing press led to a transformation of European thought . I was unfortunately not able to find the raw data anywhere and could not redraw this chart; if someone knows where this (or comparable) data can be found, please let me know.

In the language of economists, the nominal value is measured in terms of money, whereas the real value is measured against goods or services. This means that the real income is the income adjusted for inflation (it is adjusted for the changes in prices of goods and services). Thereby, it allows comparisons that tell us the quantity and quality of the goods and services that people were able to purchase at different points in time.

I learned this way of thinking about it from Twitter user @Kirsten3531, who responded with this idea to a tweet of mine here https://twitter.com/Kirsten3531/status/1389553625308045317

We’ve discussed one such consideration that is crucial for comparability when we consider how to take into account the value of owner-occupied housing.

Whether economic growth translates into the reduction of poverty depends not only on the growth itself but also on how the distribution of income changes. The poverty metrics shown in this chart and in previous charts take both of these aspects – the average level of production/income and its distribution – into account.

Jutta Bolt and Jan Luiten van Zanden (2021) – The GDP data in the chart is taken from The Long View on Economic Growth: New Estimates of GDP, How Was Life? Volume II: New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820 , OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3d96efc5-en .

The latest data point for the poverty data refers to 2018, while the latest data point for GDP per capita refers to 2016. In the chart, I have chosen the middle year (2017) as the reference year.

The ‘cost of basic needs’-approach was recommended by the ‘World Bank Commission on Global Poverty’, headed by Tony Atkinson, as a complementary method in measuring poverty.

The report for the ‘World Bank Commission on Global Poverty’ can be found here .

Tony Atkinson – and, after his death, his colleagues – turned this report into a book that was published as Anthony B. Atkinson (2019) – Measuring Poverty Around the World. You find more information on Atkinson’s website .

The CBN-approach Moatsos’ work is based on what was suggested by Allen in Robert Allen (2017) – Absolute poverty: When necessity displaces desire. In American Economic Review, Vol. 107/12, pp. 3690-3721, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161080 .

Moatsos describes the methodology as follows: “In this approach, poverty lines are calculated for every year and country separately, rather than using a single global line. The second step is to gather the necessary data to operationalize this approach alongside imputation methods in cases where not all the necessary data are available. The third step is to devise a method for aggregating countries’ poverty estimates on a global scale to account for countries that lack some of the relevant data.” In his publication – linked above – you find much more detail on all of the shown poverty data. The speed at which extreme poverty declined increased over time, as the chart shows. Moatsos writes, “It took 136 years from 1820 for our global poverty rate to fall under 50%, then another 45 years to cut this rate in half again by 2001. In the early 21st century, global poverty reduction accelerated, and in 13 years, our global measure of extreme poverty was halved again by 2014.”

These are the same global poverty estimates – based on household surveys – we discussed above.

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Ielts writing task 2 sample 277 - economic progress is one factor that is being considered, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, economic progress is one factor that is being considered to measure the success of a country, but there are other factors that should be considered when measuring the success of a country..

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Economic Growth and Development Essay

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Differences between economic growth and economic development When compared to economic development as we are to witness shortly, economic growth is a simpler and narrower subject (Acemoglu, 2009). According to the presented definitions, economic growth is a constant and sustained increase in a countries output graded as national.

The increase is depicted on the growth indicators such as education quality of citizens, how healthy a nation is, the technological adaptation rates and quantity of improvement recorded in the way technology is applied (Weil 2005).

The most common way of looking at economic growth is through the sustained improvement in the value of goods and services which are under current production in the contemporary operational environments. When a record increase is made on a country’s GDP, we pronounce an economic growth (Weil 2005).

GDP is the measure used because it shows the sum total of consumption, investments, government expenditure and the net export over a single financial period; they are used for financial forecasting (Friedman 2005).

This mode does not represent an informal size of economy; the rate at which environmental depletion through pollution takes place is likely to discourage growth aspects. Economic development on its part is a numerical indicator which uses numbers in gauging the economic well being of a country through it citizens who are the beneficiaries (Song & Woo 2008).

While economic growth bases its measurements on quantity, economic development is a measure of quality which applies in the context of morality. It is therefore vivid when living standards rise, also when the people realize and increase in their self- esteem and freedom in their operations hence wider options on choices.

Apart from GDP, Human Development Index(HDI) is also a tool used to determine Economic Development since this aspect covers even other factors affecting productivity like literacy levels and life expectancy of a countries population (Nafziger 2006).

Economic development supports economic growth definition and calculation by widening the opportunities in the economy’s productive sectors like health, education, employment and environment since in indicates the per capita income of every individual in a country (Song & Woo 2008).

Economic development busts the living standards through provision of basic requirements of life like health services, shelter, food and education (Nafziger 2006). Therefore, Economic Development is termed to major their concerns on sustainability measures. It is therefore prudent to mention that economic growth is an ingredient required for economic development though it is not needed singly.

Problems concerning measuring economic development and applicable cases Through National Income Accounting an economy maintains a record of its performance to help know how the economy is operating. The limitations of measuring economic development revolve around the setbacks shown by the measures used like the GDP and the HDI.

The measures are less accurate since they only measure Economic Development based on production value as opposed to the actual population; this is irrespective of the fact that the whole population is involved in consumption (McKibben 2007). Economic development describes efficiency on production effectiveness of the population.

If production alone was used in India to measure Economic development, India would today be the most developed country in the whole world since it has the largest GDP (Nafziger 2006). GDP as a measure of growth hence development does not include transactions which are non-market in nature in as much as they are representations of production roles.

This presents a difficulty in valuing production activities that are non- market in nature such as domestic farming in as much as they represent production. Others include cases where individuals do their own laundry and also painting their own houses.

This is applicable for developing countries such as Bangladesh whose economies’ are largely made up of the non-market items hence understatement of their GDP’s with non-market figures. GDP calculation also has the inability of involving adverse effects such as externalities and diseconomies of large-scale production (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi 2010).

Most economies still fails to recognize pollution and environmental hazards which are the greatest components and hence attracts high costs hence posing environmental threat. While the values of negative externalities are incorporated in GDP calculations the costs of the bad side effects are never inculcated resulting into inaccuracies of GDP to show economic development.

Therefore, it is important that the value of externalities be deducted from that of the GDP for it to be relied upon (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi 2010). This is because the proposed replacements such as Net Economic Welfare (NEW) and Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) failed to pick given the bad effects such as pollution cannot be ignored.

The method of development calculation also fails to clearly differentiate between items produced and the quantity produced, specifically; it does not have the ability of noting all that is produced by an economy (Song & Woo 2008).

This is witnessed in cases where in comparing GDP’s of $480 and $659 of two countries, we would conclude the first country is more developed not knowing that the GDP of $659 is mainly composed of luxurious commodity which is against the spirit of social welfare and therefore unjustifiable Conclusion It is very therefore important to note that there is never a more reliable and more suitable measure that is placed for GDP measurement and translate them to Economic Development.

This therefore leaves us with economic development that is defined in a non-clear way since methods like Human Development index pose a challenge of difficulty in data collection (Okpaji 2008).

Acemoglu, D 2009, Introduction to modern economic growth , Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Friedman, BM 2005, The moral consequences of economic growth , Knopf: New York.

McKibben, B 2007, Deep economy: the wealth of communities and the durable future , Times Books: New York.

Nafziger, EW 2006, Economic development (4th ed.), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Okpaji, A 2008, Economic Progression at our time, Economic Times, 23 (48), 97.

Song, L & Woo, WT 2008, China’s dilemma: economic growth, the environment and climate change , Anu E Press: Canberra.

Stiglitz, JE, Sen, A & Fitoussi, J 2010, Mismeasuring our lives why GDP doesn’t add up , New Press: New York, N.Y.

Weil, DN 2005, Economic growth , Addison-Wesley: Boston.

• Sustainable Development’ and Economic Growth’ Relationship
• China's Economic Development
• A Critical Evaluation of Externalities and Government Intervention Introduction
• Off-Balance Sheet Activities Definition
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• General Electric Company: Globalization Impact on Business Strategies
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• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2019, May 20). Economic Growth and Development. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/

"Economic Growth and Development." IvyPanda , 20 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Economic Growth and Development'. 20 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

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Essay 184 – Economic progress is one way to measure the success of a country

Gt writing task 2 / essay sample # 184.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Economic progress is one way to measure the success of a country, while some people think there are other factors.

What other factors should be considered? Within these factors, do you think anyone is more important than economic progress?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer:

Many economists, politicians and people around the world use economic progress as the only yardstick for evaluating a country’s progress. Others, however, consider other factors, such as education, healthcare, freedom of speech, to measure a country’s advancement. In my opinion, education exceeds all other factors in importance.

Access to education, freedom of speech, and healthcare should seriously be taken into consideration when assessing a nation’s success. Education for all citizens is pivotal to the success of a country. Freedom of speech is another crucial factor to certainly be considered. Freedom of speech promotes democracy, this, in turn, fosters prosperity in every facet of a nation. A very good example here is the Arab spring. Despite the tremendous economic success, many Arab nations are in severe crisis due to the absence of democracy. Aside from freedom of speech, the healthcare system is also an indicator to evaluate a nation’s achievement. A good healthcare system, measured by a reduced mortality rate to easy access to medical services, denotes the progress of a country.

Among these indicators, however, the right to education is the most effective way to measure a nation’s success. This is because education frees poor people from poverty, reduces inequalities and income disparities, empowers women, and creates a conducive environment for individuals to unlock their full potential. It also reaps considerable economic benefit to a country and helps societies to facilitate lasting peace and sustainable development. In fact, access to education is the key to all human rights, which in turn, pave the way for the success of a country. That is why the right to education is the most powerful factor in measuring a country’s achievement.

In conclusion, education proves to be a significant indicator to measure a nation’s success. However, other factors such as economic progress, healthcare facility and freedom of speech, also determine the prosperity of a country.

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IELTS Writing 2 Topic: Economic Growth

Updated On Oct 22, 2021

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Sample essay, band 9 sample essay.

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The economic development plays a major role in people’s lives. Economic growth in both developed and developing countries make the country richer, but it is believed that people in developing countries are happier that those in developed ones. Do you agree or disagree?

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The world is becoming richer with people having higher salaries and more comfortable mod-cons . Some people believe that this trend is conducive to people’s growing happiness in both developing and developed regions while others subscribe to the notion that it apparently sounds so, but more pains are now seen in those in the latter areas. I strongly disagree with the latter view for some reasons.

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Admittedly, the living standards of people, according to studies, are escalating by dint of economic growth. People in developing world are able to afford such facilities from cars, houses to overseas travel, enriching their life experience and providing them with more opportunities, but those in another pole of the world, say, the wealthy nations, are different, feeling less happy. It is believed that as a result of the expansion of outsourcing marke t, more jobs in haves  nations are directly stolen and delivered to those in have-nots nations to make use of low-priced labour and redundant natural resources . However, I hold an opposite view on this matter. Taking a closer look into the picture of outsourcing, we can see more advantages for both sides. This trend, after all, is inevitable, showing rising flexibility in the work market where winners are the most efficient and available while losers are less adaptable to the changing world. To further counter, another argument is that facing the threat of being deprived of current jobs, workers in more developed areas are competitively working harder and training them better with advanced jobs while those in the third-world are satisfied to have a chance of employment, leading to the latter’s lower crime rates and illegal immigration into the western countries for the sake of job finding.

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That pollution and terrorism are on a climb in the world is believed to present a threat to all people as well. Despite their richness, those in developed nations still feel annoyed for not genuinely enjoying a sustainable globe . Not only do tsunami and other natural disasters which often happen in less developed regions can have far-reaching effects on rich ones, but the existence of a wider network of terrorists actually also puts their lives in jeopardy. A typical example is the case of New York’s 9/11 event, and until now, pains are noticeably seen in the face of people here, in spite of their pride to reside in one of the most prosperous harbors of the world. Nevertheless, the truth is that since the 1970s onwards, there have been fewer conflicts and wars . Such terrorism actions can hardly cost as many deaths as those massacres in the First and Second World Wars. Besides, as the healthcare of each nation is increasingly addressed, by dint of economic growth and the provision of cutting- edge technology , more lives in both poles are saved, and diseases are in-time curbed. Also, the wealthier people are, the more they can invest in education to have a better awareness of environmental protection and the more willing they are to use environment-friendly products by virtue of innovative technological applications. Psychologically, once the financial matter is less urgent as it used to be, long-term thinking and strategies are adopted by people in both poles of the world.

In my view, all above figures really indicate that the world is changing for the better, and the most crucial is that each person, whether living anywhere, should nourish the belief to protect the earth every day to live happily ever after.

• Mod-cons (noun)  modern facilities in a house that make it easy and pleasant to live in
• Conducive to (adj.) creating a situation that helps something to happen
• Latter (as a pronoun (after ‘the’)  used for referring to the second of two people, things, or groups that have just been mentioned (In this sentence, the latter means developed regions which is mentioned previously)
• Escalate (verb) increase, develop
• By dint of something (phrase) by means of something
• Outsourcing (noun) an arrangement in which work is done by people from outside your company
• Haves (noun) rich
• Have-nots (noun)  economically disadvantaged | poor

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Economic advancement is one of the chief goals of every nation and its government across the globe. The economic state of a country greatly determines the standard of living of that country’s population. That being said, estimates like the national income of a nation are reliable indicators of the general well-being of a nation and where it stands according to global rankings. It is widely believed that economic growth has a greater impact in developing nations than developed ones. I strongly agree with this notion and I will support my view in the following essay.

First and foremost, we must acknowledge the major differences between a third-world and a first-world nation to understand the significance of economic progress in both. It is a known fact that first-world nations have passed all the stages of industrialization and are capitalist in nature, whereas third-world countries are the ones that are yet to reach this stage and cannot be deemed as either capitalist or socialist. With that in mind, there is little room for further improvement in developed nations as they have already gone through all major stages of economic development as opposed to economically developing nations where there is still much potential for progress.

Furthermore, as a majority of the population of an underdeveloped country is engaged in the primary and secondary sectors of the economy, the creation of more employment opportunities in the tertiary sector is a blessing for these countries. Since jobs in the tertiary sector are less physically demanding and provide better remuneration, they are demanded more by the people. Thus, when economic growth facilitates the operation of multinational corporations in developing countries leading to more employment in the tertiary sector, the general standard of living is bound to improve enabling a happier outlook on life among the people.

However, such advancements are rare and a majority of underdeveloped nations suffer from incompetent administration and corrupted officials. Nevertheless, there are avenues for betterment for these nations as the general awareness of the public regarding their rights has enhanced over the past few years.

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that progress has a greater impact where it is needed the most. Thereby, the efforts of the government and the people in improving the country economically are more significant in third-world nations.

Related question:

Some people think that if a country is already rich, further economic development will not result in its citizens being any happier. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

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Two Clashing Giants: Marxism and Darwinism

How will the covid-19 virus evolve, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, air pollution, the greatest environmental risk to health, featured author, latest book, the past, present and future of economic development.

This overview considers the past, the present, and the future of economic development. It begins with the conceptualization, definition, and measurement of economic development, highlighting that a narrow focus on the economic is inadequate to capture development and even, paradoxically, economic development itself. Key aspects of economic and human development over the past seven decades are then outlined, and the current landscape is described. The paper then considers the future of economic development, highlighting the challenges faced by developing countries, especially the opportunities and risks provided by the recent downward global trend in the share of labor in overall economic activity.

Economic Development

What is economic development and how has the concept evolved through the years? The economic part of it could be thought to be relatively straightforward. Surely, a steady rise in per capita income as conventionally measured is an anchor, in concept and in reality. It would be odd indeed to describe declining per capita income as economic development. But rising per capita income, while necessary, is certainly not sufficient for development, and even for economic development.

The distribution of this rising income among the population is legitimately in the domain of economic development. Two key features of the distribution of income are inequality and poverty. If average income rises but the inequality of its distribution also increases, then an egalitarian perspective would mark down the latter as a negative aspect of economic development. If poverty, the population below a socially acceptable level of income, also increases then this is another negative mark to be set against rising average income in assessing economic development. Of course, the actual outcome on poverty will depend on an interaction between average income and inequality and which of the two forces dominates empirically.

If higher average income is accompanied by increasingly unequal distribution, an egalitarian perspective will qualify it as negative. Growing poverty would also contrast negatively with highter average income in any evaluation of economic development

But identifying economic development purely with income is too narrow a conception. Other aspects of well-being are surely relevant. Education and health outcomes, for example, go beyond income. They are important markers of well-being in their own right, but they influence, and are influenced by, income. High income can deliver an educated and healthy population, but an educated and healthy population also delivers high income. Thus, any assessment of development, and even economic development, needs to take into account a broader range of measures of well-being than simply income and its distribution. Education and health, and their distribution in the population, are important as well.

Distribution is not simply about inequality between individuals. Inequality across broadly defined groups is also a key factor. Gender inequality saps economic development as it suppresses the potential of half the population. Thus, improvements in measures of gender inequality are to be looked for in their own right, but also because of the contributions they make to economic growth and to addressing economic inequality. Similarly, inequalities between ethnic and regional groups stoke social tension and affect the climate for investment and hence economic growth. It is difficult to separate out these seemingly non-economic dimensions from the narrowly economic. Economic development is thus also about development more generally.

A narrow focus on measured market income misses out on use of resources which are not priced appropriately in the market. The most important of these is the environment, especially in the context of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Rising national income as conventionally measured does not price in the loss of irreplaceable environmental resources at the national level nor, in the case of climate change, irreversible moves toward catastrophic risks for the planet we live on.

A broader conception of development has been embraced by the international community, first through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000, and then through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015. The eight MDGs were expanded and modified to seventeen SDGs, which include conventional economic measures such as income growth and income poverty, but also inequality, gender disparities, and environmental degradation (Kanbur, Patel, and Stiglitz, 2018). Indeed, the crystallization and cementing of this broader conceptualization of development, and even of economic development, has been one of the sure advances during the past decade of thinking, and surely represents a move toward a “new enlightenment” in assessing trajectories of achievement. But what have these trajectories been over the past seven decades since World War II? The next section takes up the story.

The six decades after the end of World War II, until the crisis of 2008, were a golden age in terms of the narrow measure of economic development, real per capita income (or gross domestic product, GDP). This multiplied by a factor of four for the world as a whole between 1950 and 2008. For comparison, before this period it took a thousand years for world per capita GDP to multiply by a factor of fifteen. Between the year 1000 and 1978, China’s income per capita GDP increased by a factor of two; but it multiplied six-fold in the next thirty years. India’s per capita income increased five-fold since independence in 1947, having increased a mere twenty percent in the previous millennium. Of course, the crisis of 2008 caused a major dent in the long-term trend, but it was just that. Even allowing for the sharp decreases in output as the result of the crisis, postwar economic growth is spectacular compared to what was achieved in the previous thousand years.

The six decades after the end of World War II, until the crisis of 2008, were a golden age in terms of the narrow measure of economic development, real per capita income. This multiplied by a factor of four for the world as a whole between 1950 and 2008

But what about the distribution of this income, and in particular the incomes of the poorest? Did they share in the average increase at all? Here the data do not stretch back as far as for average income. In fact, we only have reasonably credible information going back three decades. But, World Bank calculations, using their global poverty line of $1.90 (in purchasing power parity) per person per day, the fraction of world population in poverty in 2013 was almost a quarter of what it was in 1981—forty-two percent compared to eleven percent. The large countries of the world—China, India, but also Vietnam, Bangladesh, and so on—have contributed to this unprecedented global poverty decline. Indeed, China’s performance in reducing poverty, with hundreds of millions being lifted above the poverty line in three decades, has been called the most spectacular poverty reduction in all of human history.

But the story of the postwar period is not simply one of rising incomes and falling income poverty. Global averages of social indicators have improved dramatically as well. Primary school completion rates have risen from just over seventy percent in 1970 to ninety percent now as we approach the end of the second decade of the 2000s. Maternal mortality has halved, from 400 to 200 per 100,000 live births over the last quarter century. Infant mortality is now a quarter of what it was half a century ago (30 compared to 120, per 1,000 live births). These improvements in mortality have contributed to improving life expectancy, up from fifty years in 1960 to seventy years in 2010.

Focus on just income, health, and education hides another major global trend since the war. This has truly been an age of decolonization. Membership of the UN ratcheted up as more and more colonies gained political independence from their colonial masters, rising from around fifty in 1945 to more than 150 three decades later. There has also been a matching steady increase in the number of democracies with decolonization, but there was an added spurt after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when almost twenty new countries were added to the democratic fold. To these general and well quantified trends we could add others, less easily documented, for example on women’s political participation.

With this background of spectacular achievements at the global level, what is to stop us from declaring a victorious past on human progress? The answer is that we cannot, because good global average trends, although they are to be welcomed, can hide alarming counter tendencies. Countries in Africa which are mired in conflict do not have any growth data to speak of, and indeed any economic growth at all. Again in Africa, for countries for which we have data, although the fraction of people in poverty has been falling, the absolute number in poverty has been rising, by almost 100 million in the last quarter century, because of population growth.

A similar tale with two sides confronts us when we look at inequality of income in the world. Inequality as between all individuals in the world can be seen as made up of two components. The first is inequality between average incomes across countries—the gap between rich and poor countries. The second is inequality within each country around its average. Given the fast growth of large poorer countries like India and China relative to the growth of richer countries like the US, Japan, and those in Europe, inequality between countries has declined. Inequality within countries displays a more complex picture, but sharp rises in inequality in the US, Europe, and in China and India means that overall within-country inequality has increased. Combining the two, world inequality has in fact declined overall (Lakner and Milanovic, 2016). The importance of between-nation inequality has fallen from a contribution of four fifths of global inequality a quarter century ago. But its contribution is still not lower than three quarters of total world inequality. These two features, rising within nation inequality in large developing countries, and the still enormous role of between-nation inequality in global inequality, are the other side of the coin from the good news of developing country growth on average in the last three decades.

Inequality among Earth’s inhabitants comprises two elements: the first, which is expressed by each country’s average income, reflects the gap between rich and poor countries; the second reflects inequalities within each country in terms of average incomes

But income growth, if it comes at the expense of the environment, mis-measures improvement in human well-being. Particulate pollution has increased by ten percent over the last quarter century, with all of its related health implications. The global population under water stress has almost doubled in the last half century, and there has been a steady decline in global forest area over the same period. Global greenhouse gas emissions have increased from under 40 gigatons equivalent to close to 50 gigatons in the last quarter century. On present trends global warming is projected to be around 4°C by 2100, well above the safe level of 1.5°C warming. The consequences of global warming have already begun to appear in terms of an increase in severe weather outcomes.

Thus, the past seven decades have indeed been golden ones for economic development on some measures, and even development more broadly measured. But all is not golden. The trends hide very worrying tendencies which have begun to surface in terms of their consequences, and are shaping the landscape of development we have with us. The next section takes up the story with a focus on the present of economic development.

The Present

The present of the economic development discourse is, of course, shaped by the trends of the distant and recent past. An interesting and important feature of the current landscape is the shift in the global geography of poverty. Using standard official definitions, forty years ago ninety percent of the world’s poor lived in low-income countries. Today, three quarters of the world’s poor live in middle-income countries (Kanbur and Sumner, 2012). The fast growth of some large countries, accompanied by rising inequality in these countries, means that the average income increases have not been reflected in poverty reduction to the same extent. So, although these countries have now crossed the middle-income category boundary, which depends on average income, they still have large absolute numbers of poor people. These poor in middle-income countries vie with the poor in poor countries for global concern and attention.

This disconnect between a person being poor and their country being poor is shaking up the global development assistance system, which was built on the notion that the bulk of the world’s poor lived in poor countries. This is manifested in the “graduation” criteria used by most aid agencies, whereby aid is sharply reduced and then cut off when a country’s average income crosses a threshold, typically related to middle-income status. It raises the question posed by Kanbur and Sumner (2012): “Poor countries or poor people?” The response has been, by and large, to stay with the average income criteria. This has led to and will increasingly lead to a dichotomy between very poor countries, often mired in conflict, and middle-income countries where, in fact, the bulk of the world’s poor now live. Thus, if the World Bank’s soft loan arm sticks to its graduation criteria, it will in effect disengage from the vast majority of the world’s poor, while focusing on the poorest countries in the world. This disengagement is difficult to justify on ethical grounds, but also difficult to understand if middle-income countries are also the source of global environmental problems and, for some of them, the source of conflict-based migration.

Migration, conflict-based and economic, brings us to another important feature of the present landscape of economic development, one which is the result of past trends and which will surely have global implications for the future. Rising inequality in rich countries has intersected with increased migration pressures from poor countries. Despite the closing of the gap between rich and poor countries because of the fast growth of some poor countries, the gap is still enormous, both on average and especially so for the poorest countries who have not grown as fast. These gaps have combined with increased pressures because of armed conflict and exacerbated by environmental stress.

The hollowing out of the middle class in rich countries has coincided with greater immigration, leading to a toxification of democratic politics in these countries and the rise of far-right, nativist, and xenophobic tendencies in the body politic (Kanbur, 2018). The election of Trump, the vote for Brexit, and the entry of Alternative für Deustchland into the German Parliament are only the most obvious outward manifestations of the current malaise of the body politic. Nor is this just an issue in rich countries. The anti-migrant mob violence in South Africa and ethnic conflict in countries such as Myanmar are part of the same pattern of migration tensions which color economic development today.

The current terrain of economic development has clearly been influenced by the great financial crisis of 2008. Most recently, the global crisis has proved disruptive to development gains, although the losses can be said to have been mainly concentrated in the rich countries. But the reactions and the backlash now apparent in rich countries are having and will have consequences for economic development in poor countries. Further, the genesis of the crisis exposed fault lines in the economic model pursued by rich countries, with wholesale deregulation of markets and especially of banking and capital flows.

The hollowing out of the middle class in rich countries has coincided with greater immigration, leading to a toxification of democratic politics in these countries and the rise of far-right, nativist, and xenophobic tendencies in the body politic

The current state of affairs and ongoing debates relate back to the trajectory of thinking since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It will be recalled that in a famous statement of the time the events were characterized as marking “the end of history” (Fukuyama, 1989), meaning by this that liberal democracy and free markets had won the battle of ideas. But, as noted by Kanbur (2001), “the end of history lasted for such a short time.” The financial crisis of 1997, emanating from the newly liberalized capital markets of East Asia, was a warning shot. The financial crisis of 2008, emanating in the deregulated financial markets of the US and Europe, led to the world global depression since the 1930s.

The world as a whole is only just recovering from this catastrophe. Its effect on economic thinking has been salutary. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom famously asked British economists why they did not see it coming. The response from Timothy Besley and Peter Hennessy was that: “So in summary, Your Majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole” (quoted in Kanbur, 2016). But the risks to the system as a whole were magnified by the deregulatory stance of policy makers in the early 2000s, still basking in the “end of history” narrative of the turn of the millennium. It is to be hoped that the lessons of the devastating crisis of 2008 will not be forgotten as we go forward.

Thus the crisis of 2008 sits atop, and sharpens, negative aspects of trends identified in the previous section and shapes the present and future prospects. These future prospects are taken up in the next section.

The past and present of economic development sets the platform for the long-term future. Environmental degradation and climate change will surely worsen development prospects and ratchet up conflict and environmental stress-related migration. The issues here have been well debated in the literature (see for example, Kanbur and Shue, 2018). And the actions needed are relatively clear—the question is rather whether there is the political will to carry them out.

Beyond challenges that arise due to ecological change and environmental degradation, another prominent challenge that has arisen since the 1980s is the global decline in the labor share. The labor share refers to payment to workers as a share of gross national product at the national level, or as a share of total revenue at the firm level. Its downward trend globally is evident using observations from macroeconomic data (Karababounis and Neiman, 2013; Grossman et al., 2017) as well as from firm-level data (Autor et al., 2017). A decline in the labor share is symptomatic of overall economic growth outstripping total labor income. Between the late 1970s and the 2000s the labor share has declined by nearly five percentage points from 54.7% to 49.9% in advanced economies. By 2015, the figure rebounded slightly and stood at 50.9%. In emerging markets, the labor share likewise declined from 39.2% to 37.3% between 1993 and 2015 (IMF, 2017). Failure to coordinate appropriate policy responses in the face of these developments can spell troubling consequences for the future of economic development. Indeed, the decline in labor share despite overall economic progress is often seen as fuel that has fanned the fire of anti-immigration and anti-globalization backlashes in recent years, threatening a retreat of the decades-long progress made on trade and capital market liberalization worldwide.

It should be noted that the labor share and income inequality are inextricably linked. Indeed, the labor share is frequently used as a measure of income inequality itself (for example, Alesina and Rodrik, 1994). Understanding the forces that determine the labor share has been a singularly important aspect of the landscape of economic development. Indeed, this quest has guided trade and development economics research for decades, during which time the forces of globalization and its many nuanced impacts on the labor share have been fleshed out (Bardhan, 2006; Bourguignon, 2017).

Yet, there are good reasons to take the view that canonical economic models often do not offer predictions consistent with the current pattern of labor share decline in the global economy. Notably, behind the veil of global labor share decline is in fact a tremendous amount of underlying diversity in the direction of change of the labor share at the country level, with emerging and advanced economies at both ends of the spectrum (Karababounis and Neiman, 2013). Such observations are contrary to the canonical prediction of economic models based on the assumptions of constant technologies, perfect competition, and no market imperfections. Guided by these assumptions, the standard prediction is that workers in relatively labor abundant countries should strictly benefit from exposure to world trade in both absolute terms and relative to owners of other inputs of production. In stark contrast, however, after taking on the role as the world’s largest factory, China has experienced one of the most significant rates of decline in labor share since 1993 (IMF, 2017).

A search for additional forces that may be in play is clearly warranted . 2   To this end, the trajectory of the global labor share sits at the confluence of three major shifts in the defining features of developing and developed economies. These include: (i) the adoption of labor-saving technological change; (ii) the shift in importance of employer market power; and (iii) the growing prevalence of alternative modes of employment in the labor market.

Labor-saving technological change is a key driver in the recent global labor share decline (IMF, 2017). The reasons for firms and producers to embrace such a change are many, including a reduction in the price of investment goods and informational technology investment (Karababounis and Neiman, 2013), and the advent of robotics in the manufacturing process (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018), for example. Already, advanced economies do not have a monopoly over the adoption of labor-saving technological change. Indeed, China has put in place more robots in manufacturing than any other country according to recent estimates (Bloomberg News, 2017). The implication of labor-saving technological change on labor income is not obvious, however, as it juxtaposes the overall productivity gains that arise from the use of labor-saving technical change, with its potential adverse consequences on unemployment. In the end, whether workers benefit from labor-saving technological change will depend on how quickly productivity gains translate into wage gains (Acemoglu and Autor, 2011; Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018; Chau and Kanbur, 2018).

An important problem arose in the 1980s: the worldwide decline in the workers’ payment as a share of gross national product on a national level, or as a share of total revenue at the firm level

It is here that additional research can potentially reap significant dividends in furthering our understanding of how developing country markets function and how they respond to shocks. Some important mediating factors have already been identified. These include existing labor market distortions that may skew decision-making about technological change (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018), and search friction in the labor market and the resulting possibility of complex distributional responses to technological change (Chau and Kanbur, 2018). Further, policy responses to labor-saving technical change need to be developed and implemented, including perhaps public investment in research into developing efficient labor using technology (Atkinson, 2016; Kanbur, 2018).

In addition to national- or market-level differences in the labor share, recent firm-level evidence has inspired a surge in studies showing that employer market power can give rise to systematic differences in the labor share across firms with heterogeneous productivity levels (for example, Melitz and Ottaviano, 2008). It is by now well known that globalization disproportionately favors high-productivity firms. The ascendance of superstar firms in recent years in the US, with their demonstrably higher propensities to adopt labor-saving technologies, provides an excellent example of how industrial organizational changes can impact the overall labor share (Autor et al., 2017). Employer market power has become a fact of life in emerging markets as well (for example, Brandt et al., 2017). In the course of economic development, does the shift in importance of large firms disproportionately favor the adoption of labor-saving technologies (Zhang, 2013)? Or do they, in fact, value worker morale and pay higher wages (Basu, Chau, and Soundararajan, 2018)? These are critical questions that can inform a host of policy issues going forward, from the desirability of minimum wages to facilitate better wage bargains to be struck for workers, to the use of competition policies as a tool for economic development, for example.

Compounding these shifts in technologies and industrial organization, labor market institutions in emerging markets have also seen significant developments. Present-day labor contracts no longer resemble the textbook single employer single worker setting that forms the basis for many policy prescriptions. Instead, workers often confront wage bargains constrained by fixed-term, or temporary contracts. Alternatively, labor contracts are increasingly mired in the ambiguities created in multi-employer relationships, where workers must answer to their factory supervisors in addition to layers of middleman subcontractors. These developments have created wage inequities within establishments, where fixed-term and subcontracted workers face a significant wage discount relative to regular workers, with little access to non-wage benefits. Strikingly, rising employment opportunities can now generate little or even negative wage gains, as the contractual composition of workers changes with employment growth. The result can be a downward spiral in worker morale (Basu, Chau, and Soundararajan, 2018). These developments suggest that a decline in labor share generated by contractual shifts in the labor market can ultimately have adverse consequences on the pace of overall economic progress. Attempts to address wage inequities between workers within establishments is a nascent research area (Freeman, 2014; Basu, Chau, and Soundararajan, 2018), and what is intriguing here is the possibility that we now have a set of circumstances under which inequality mitigating policies, by raising worker morale, may end up improving overall efficiency as well.

The ascendence of superstar firms with a propensity to adopt labor-saving technologies provides an excellent example of how industrial organizational changes can impact labor’s overall share of the GNP

We began this chapter by emphasizing the joint importance of overall economic progress and income inequality as metrics of development. Our brief look at the future of the economic development landscape sheds light on the critical importance of bringing together multiple perspectives in our understanding of how these two metrics of development are codetermined. Doing so opens up new policy tools (for example, competition policies and technology policies), new reasons for (non-)intervention (for example, workers’ morale consequences of wage inequities), and, perhaps equally important, new policy settings where equity and efficiency are no longer substitutes for each other.

Looking back over the past seven decades since the end of World War II, economic development presents us with a string of contradictions. There have been unprecedented rises in per capita income, with many large developing countries crossing the threshold from low-income to middle-income status. These income increases have been accompanied by equally unprecedented improvements in income poverty and in education and health indicators.

But at the same time there is palpable anxiety about the development process, its sustainability, and its implications for the global economy. Despite the fast increases in income in poorer countries, gaps between them and rich countries remain large. Together with conflict and environmental stress, this has led to migration pressures, particularly for richer countries but also for better-off developing countries. The combination of migration pressures and rising inequality has led to the toxic rise of illiberal populist politics which is threatening postwar democratic gains.

While environmental and climate change, and rising inequality in general, have been much discussed, we have highlighted a particular source of rising inequality as an ongoing threat to economic development. The falling share of labor in the economy is set to continue and unless counteracted by strong policy measures will threaten inclusive development in the coming decades.

We have also highlighted how thinking in economics has responded to the underlying forces of change. There has been a broadening of the concept of development beyond the narrowly economic. The roots of the great financial crisis of the end of the first decade of the new millennium have also been scrutinized and, hopefully, some lessons have been learned. And attention is turning to understanding the inexorable decline in labor’s share. Whether all this adds up to a New Enlightenment in economic thinking is something the next decades of development will reveal.

Bibliography

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—Alesina, Alberto, and Rodrik, Dani. 1994. “Distributive politics and economic growth.”  Quarterly Journal of Economics  109: 465–490.

—Atkinson, Anthony B. 2016.  Inequality: What Can be Done?  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

—Autor, David, Dorn, David, Katz, Lawrence, Patterson, Christina, and van Reenen, John. 2017. “The fall of the labor share and the rise of superstar firms.” NBER Working Paper No. 23396.

—Bardhan, Pranab. 2006. “Does globalization help or hurt the world’s poor?”  Scientific American  294(4): 84–91.

—Basu, Arnab K., Chau, Nancy H., and Soundararajan, Vidhya. 2018. “Contract employment as a worker discipline device.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 11579.

—Bloomberg News. 2017. “China’s robot revolution may affect the global economy—Automation impact on wages isn’t showing in the data – yet.”  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/china-s-robot-revolution-may-weigh-on-global-rebalancing  (accessed on September 19, 2018).

—Brandt, Loren, Van Beisebroeck, Johannes, Wang, Luhang, and Zhang, Yifan. 2017. “WTO accession and performance of Chinese manufacturing firms.”  American Economic Review 107: 2784–2820.

—Bourguignon, François. 2017.  The Globalization of Inequality . New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

—Chau, Nancy, and Kanbur, Ravi. “Employer power, labor saving technical change, and inequality.” Cornell University, Dyson Working Paper 2018–04.

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Where Tim Walz Stands on the Issues

As governor of Minnesota, he has enacted policies to secure abortion protections, provide free meals for schoolchildren, allow recreational marijuana and set renewable energy goals.

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By Maggie Astor

• Aug. 6, 2024

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the newly announced running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, has worked with his state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact an ambitious agenda of liberal policies: free college tuition for low-income students, free meals for schoolchildren, legal recreational marijuana and protections for transgender people.

“You don’t win elections to bank political capital,” Mr. Walz wrote last year about his approach to governing. “You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.”

Republicans have slammed these policies as big-government liberalism and accused Mr. Walz of taking a hard left turn since he represented a politically divided district in Congress years ago.

Here is an overview of where Mr. Walz stands on some key issues.

Mr. Walz signed a bill last year that guaranteed Minnesotans a “fundamental right to make autonomous decisions” about reproductive health care on issues such as abortion, contraception and fertility treatments.

Abortion was already protected by a Minnesota Supreme Court decision, but the new law guarded against a future court reversing that precedent as the U.S. Supreme Court did with Roe v. Wade, and Mr. Walz said this year that he was also open to an amendment to the state’s Constitution that would codify abortion rights.

Another bill he signed legally shields patients, and their medical providers, if they receive an abortion in Minnesota after traveling from a state where abortion is banned.

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