Master Development, Become the Guru

Economic development is perhaps the most powerful concept to master for IBDP economics exams. Unlike narrower economic topics, it seamlessly integrates growth theories, poverty reduction, human capabilities, and institutional change into one flexible framework. This versatility allows you to apply development perspectives across multiple exam questions—whether addressing inequality, sustainability, international trade, or measuring economic success. More importantly, understanding how leading economists from Sen to Todaro conceptualise development equips you with sophisticated language and examples that demonstrate both technical knowledge and ethical awareness. In exams where making connections between economic theory and real human impact matters, a nuanced grasp of development economics consistently elevates answers from good to exceptional.

What makes a strong definition of economic development particularly valuable is how it serves as both foundation and yardstick throughout your essay. Once you've established a multidimensional understanding of development—encompassing material wellbeing, capabilities expansion, institutional quality, and human flourishing—you create a powerful evaluative framework. This allows you to continually refer back to your definition when assessing policies, comparing outcomes across countries, or analyzing case studies. For instance, you might argue that while a certain policy boosted GDP growth, it failed to achieve true development according to Sen's capabilities approach or Deaton's wellbeing metrics. This recursive technique demonstrates sophisticated critical thinking and creates a cohesive argument structure that examiners consistently reward with top marks.

Here are a number of excerpts that provide insight to the complex idea of economic development. Challenge: read and reflect upon them all and then grab a pen and paper and design your own answer to the question: what is economic development?

‘Sen...defines capabilities as “the freedoms that a person has in terms of the choice of functionings, given his personal features and his command over commodities.’ Michael Todaro

Michael Todaro is a leading expert in development economics, he argues that ‘development is both a physical reality and a state of mind in which society has, through some combination of social, economic, and institutional processes, secured the means for obtaining a better life.’ There are three objectives 1) to increase the availability and widen the distribution of basic life sustaining goods such as food, shelter, health and protection 2) to raise levels of living (incomes, jobs, education, cultural and human values, material well being, self esteem) and 3) to expand the range of economic and social choices available

There are countless quotes from Amartya Sen on development issues. Here’s one that might grab your attention. ‘There are many fundamentally different ways of seeing the quality of living, and quite a few of them have some immediate plausibility. You could be well off, without being well. You could be well, without being able to lead the life you wanted. You could have got the life you wanted, without being happy. You could be happy, without having much freedom. You could have a good deal of freedom, without achieving so much. We can go on.’

In 2011 economists A. Banarjee and E. Duflo (Nobel prize winners 2019) wrote a very influential book titled Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to FIght Global Poverty. Here’s a short quote that helps put poverty into perspective, ‘Living on 99 cents a day means you have limited access to information - newspapers, televisions, and books all cost money - and so you often just don’t know certain facts that the rest of the world takes for granted, like, for example, that vaccines can stop your child from getting measles. It means living in a world whose institutions are not built for someone like you. Most of the poor do not have a salary, let alone a retirement plan that deducts automatically from it. It means making decisions about things that come with a lot of small print when you cannot even properly read the large print.

Angus Deaton won the Economics Nobel Prize in 2015. His book The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality is a must read for anyone that wants to study development economics, Here is a pertinent quote for our studies, ‘Wellbeing includes material wellbeing, such as income and wealth; physical and psychological wellbeing, represented in health and happiness; and education and the ability to participate in civil society through democracy and the rule of law.’

If you’re not yet familiar with the Oxford University Press and their series of books called A very Short Introduction I suggest you take a look at their impressive broad range of topics. Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University authored the Economics book - which is a fantastic first read into development issues. In it he provides the life story of Desta a girl that lives in poverty; ‘In her world people don’t enjoy food security, don’t own many assets, are stunted and wasted, don’t live long, can’t read or write, aren’t empowered, can’t insure themselves well against crop failure or household calamity, don’t have control over their own lives, and live in unhealthy surroundings. Each deprivation reinforces the others, so that the productivity of labour effort, ideas, manufactured capital, and of land and natural resources are all very low and remain low. Desta’s life is filled with problems each day. 

‘There are huge differences in living standards around the world. Even the poorest citizens of the United States have incomes and access to health care, education, public services, and economic and social opportunities that are far superior to those available to the vast mass of people living in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Central America.’ Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (2012)

Paul Collier’s famous book The Bottom Billion (2007) puts forward four types of poverty traps. Knowing them and understanding them will allow you to think about development issues at a deeper level, ‘the conflict trap, the natural resources trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbours, and the trap of bad governance in a small country.’

In Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008) economist Jeffrey Sachs puts forward his plan to solve population growth, climate change, extreme poverty! Ambitious I hear you say. ‘The twenty first century can be a century of shared prosperity, a great convergence… The global economy can be marked by narrowing of the income gap between rich and poor countries, not because of a decline in incomes in the richer societies by because of rapid catch up by the poor. Shared prosperity would not only mean the end of massive and unnecessary suffering among those who are now trapped in extreme poverty but would also mean a safer and more democratic world as well with rising incomes underpinning political stability and increasingly open societies. Moreover, resentment along class and ethnic lines would diminish if all income groups and cultures has the chance to share in a growing global economy. It is when one region or group is excluded that hatred and unrest are likely to follow.’

A loud voice in the aid debate and the market versus planning discussions is economist WIlliam Easterly. The title of his 2006 book provides a clear indication of his stance on the issues;  The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. ‘Almost three billion people live on less than two dollars a day, adjusted for purchasing power. Eight hundred and forty million people in the world don’t have enough to eat. Ten million children die every year from easily preventable diseases. AIDS is killing three million people a year and is still spreading. One billion people in the world lack access to clean water; two billion lack access to sanitation. One billion adults are illiterate. About a quarter of the children in poor countries do not finish primary school.’

In a very interesting paper about uneven development and globalisation Deepak Nayyar highlights the difficulties of pinning down development as a concept. "There is a vast literature on economic development which is rich in both its range and depth. Yet there is not enough clarity about what development actually means. There are in fact many different views of what it constitutes, and these perceptions have changed over time. There is, however, an irreducible objective which may be construed as the essential meaning: development must bring about an improvement in the living conditions of people. It should, therefore, ensure the provision of basic human needs for all - not just food and clothing, but also shelter, health care and education."

Content developed by Matt with AI collaboration.