LGCSE Development Studies (0182) cheat sheet

Development = multidimensional improvement in living standards, capabilities and freedom, not merely growth in GDP; Amartya Sen's capability approach frames development as expansion of what people can be and do.

Growth vs development: GDP growth is a means; development includes health, education, equity, participation and environmental sustainability. A country can grow without developing (jobless or unequal growth).

Modernisation theory (Rostow's stages: traditional, preconditions, take-off, drive to maturity, mass consumption) predicts linear transition; dependency theory (Prebisch, Frank) argues periphery supplies cheap primary goods to core and stays underdeveloped.

Neoliberal/Washington Consensus package: liberalise trade, privatise, deregulate, fiscal discipline, secure property rights; critique focuses on social costs and loss of policy space.

Sustainable development (Brundtland 1987): meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs - integrates economic, social and environmental pillars.

Human development = enlarging people's choices; core dimensions are a long healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living (UNDP Human Development Report, 1990 onward).

Basic needs approach (ILO 1976) targets food, shelter, clothing, health, water, sanitation, education and public transport as minimum thresholds.

Participatory development: beneficiaries as agents in decisions; distinguishes top-down service delivery from community-driven prioritisation and ownership.

GDP = C + I + G + (X − M); GNP = GDP + net factor income from abroad; GNI per capita = GNI ÷ mid-year population.

Real vs nominal: real GDP removes price change using a base year or deflator; GDP deflator = (nominal ÷ real) × 100.

Growth rate ≈ [(Yt − Y0) ÷ Y0] × 100; compound annual growth rate = [(Yt ÷ Y0)^(1/n) − 1] × 100.

PPP converts currencies to a common purchasing power so cross-country comparisons reflect real living costs; PPP dollars differ from market exchange rates.

HDI = geometric mean of three normalised indices: life expectancy (health), mean and expected years of schooling (education), GNI per capita (income). Geometric mean penalises weak dimensions.

Gini coefficient ranges 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality); Lorenz curve plots cumulative population share against cumulative income share; larger area between curve and diagonal = higher inequality.

Multidimensional Poverty Index: counts overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards (10 indicators, 3 dimensions); a household is MPI-poor if deprived in at least one-third of weighted indicators.

Per capita figures use total population; dependency ratio = (under-15 + over-64) ÷ working-age (15–64) × 100.

Limitations of GDP: ignores unpaid work, informal activity, inequality, environmental depletion and household distribution; use satellite accounts or adjusted measures (e.g., ISEW) to correct.

Demographic transition stages: high birth/high death → high birth/falling death (rapid growth) → falling birth/falling death → low birth/low death (stable, ageing).

Natural increase rate = crude birth rate − crude death rate (per 1,000); doubling time ≈ 70 ÷ annual growth rate in percent.

Population pyramid shape reads history: broad base = high fertility and young dependency; narrowing base = fertility decline; bulging top = ageing.

Total fertility rate = average births per woman over her lifetime; replacement level is about 2.1 in low-mortality settings.

Push factors (land scarcity, unemployment, conflict) drive rural–urban migration; pull factors (jobs, services, education) attract; urbanisation without industrial jobs creates informal settlement.

Epidemiological transition: infectious and parasitic disease burden falls, non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer) rise with ageing and lifestyle change.

Health indicators: infant mortality rate (deaths under age 1 per 1,000 live births), under-5 mortality, maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), life expectancy at birth.

Education indicators: net enrolment ratio, gross enrolment ratio (can exceed 100% with over-age/under-age pupils), pupil–teacher ratio, completion and literacy rates.

Human capital: schooling and health raise productivity; returns are higher where labour markets absorb skills, so quality (learning outcomes) matters as much as enrolment.

Absolute poverty uses a fixed threshold (e.g., international lines of $2.15/day 2017 PPP for extreme poverty); relative poverty uses a share of median income (commonly 50% or 60%).

Headcount index (P0) = share of population below the line; poverty gap (P1) = average shortfall from the line; squared poverty gap (P2) weights the poorest more heavily.

Poverty line construction: cost of a basic food basket giving minimum calories plus an allowance for essential non-food spending.

Gini measures overall inequality; ratio of top to bottom quintile shares shows the extremes; Palma ratio = income share of richest 10% ÷ poorest 40%.

Kuznets curve hypothesises inequality rises then falls with income per head; evidence is mixed and policy-dependent, not automatic.

Social exclusion = inability to participate fully in economic, social, political and cultural life; it captures process and relational dimensions that income poverty misses.

Chronic vs transient poverty: chronic is long-duration and structural; transient follows shocks (drought, illness, job loss) and is addressed by safety nets and insurance.

Vulnerability = probability of falling below a threshold after a shock; measured by exposure, sensitivity and coping capacity.

Pro-poor growth: growth is pro-poor if the incomes of the poor rise proportionally at least as fast as average income; assess with growth incidence curves.

Structural change: as income rises, employment shifts from agriculture to industry then services; productivity growth in each sector drives the shift.

Lewis dual-sector model: surplus rural labour transfers to a modern sector at a fixed wage until the surplus is absorbed (the turning point).

Informal employment = work not covered by labour law, social protection or taxation; measured via household surveys and mixed surveys of informal enterprises.

Unemployment rate = unemployed ÷ labour force × 100; labour force participation rate = labour force ÷ working-age population × 100.

Comparative advantage: specialise where opportunity cost is lower; gains from trade require adjustment costs and can be unevenly distributed within countries.

Global value chains split production across borders; lead firms capture design, branding and retail margins, while assembly stages face intense price competition.

Foreign direct investment brings capital, technology and jobs but may crowd out domestic firms or repatriate profits; portfolio investment is more volatile than FDI.

Remittances are household-to-household transfers; they are counter-cyclical and often exceed aid and FDI in small economies, but carry brain-drain and dependency risks.

Fiscal tools: progressive taxation and targeted transfers reduce inequality; regressive taxes (VAT on essentials) can raise it unless offset by exemptions.

Food security has four pillars: availability, access, utilisation (safety and nutrition) and stability over time; famine is usually an access failure, not only a production failure (Sen's entitlement approach).

Food insecurity measures: prevalence of undernourishment (calorie-based), Food Insecurity Experience Scale (self-reported), and coping strategy indices.

Green Revolution package: high-yielding varieties plus irrigation, fertiliser and pesticides; raised yields but widened inequality between large and small farmers and created input dependence.

Sustainable agriculture: conservation tillage, crop rotation, integrated pest management, agroforestry and organic matter management to protect soil fertility.

Land tenure security (titles, registration, secure leases) affects investment in soil and irrigation; fragmented holdings raise transaction costs.

Rural livelihoods framework: five assets - natural, physical, financial, human and social capital - shaped by institutions and vulnerability context.

Agricultural marketing: cooperatives, contract farming and warehouse receipt systems reduce price risk and improve smallholder bargaining power.

Extension and research: adoption lags reflect risk, credit and information constraints; participatory and farmer-field-school approaches improve uptake.

Post-harvest losses arise in harvesting, storage, transport and processing; reducing them raises effective supply without extra land or water.

Tragedy of the commons: open-access resources are over-used because benefits are private and costs shared; solutions are clear property rights, quotas, or community management (Ostrom).

Externality = cost or benefit borne by third parties not in the market price; pollution is a negative externality, so markets over-produce it.

Policy instruments: Pigouvian taxes, cap-and-trade permits, standards, subsidies for substitutes, and payment for ecosystem services.

Sustainable yield: harvest rate must not exceed regeneration rate; for a renewable resource, maximum sustainable yield occurs at intermediate stock size.

Non-renewable resources: depletion is measured by reserves-to-production ratio; Hartwick rule suggests reinvesting resource rents to keep capital constant.

Greenhouse effect: greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide) trap outgoing longwave radiation; concentrations are measured in ppm CO2-equivalent.

Mitigation reduces emissions (renewables, efficiency, carbon pricing); adaptation reduces vulnerability (drought-resistant crops, flood defences, early warning).

Deforestation drivers include agricultural expansion, logging, fuelwood and infrastructure; consequences are carbon loss, soil erosion, biodiversity loss and altered hydrology.

Environmental Kuznets curve hypothesises pollution rises then falls with income; evidence is weak and depends on pollutant and policy.

Good governance dimensions: accountability, transparency, rule of law, responsiveness, effectiveness, participation and equity.

Corruption = abuse of entrusted power for private gain; measured by perception indices, which reflect perceptions not verified incidence.

Rule of law requires predictable, publicly known laws applied equally; arbitrary power and impunity undermine investment and service delivery.

Human rights generations: civil and political; economic, social and cultural; collective/solidarity rights (e.g., development, environment).

UDHR (1948) sets the foundational catalogue; the ICCPR and ICESCR (1966) translate it into binding treaty obligations.

Right to development (1986 declaration) makes the human person the central subject of development and requires participation and fair distribution of benefits.

Civil society = voluntary associations between household and state; functions include advocacy, service delivery, watchdog monitoring and mobilising marginalised groups.

Decentralisation devolves fiscal, administrative and political authority to local government; it improves proximity but risks elite capture and weak local capacity.

Social accountability tools: participatory budgeting, community scorecards, public expenditure tracking surveys and social audits.

SDGs (2015, 17 goals, 169 targets) replaced the MDGs (2000–2015, 8 goals); they are universal, applying to all countries, not only developing ones.

Key SDG clusters: poverty (1), hunger (2), health (3), education (4), gender (5), water (6), energy (7), decent work (8), industry (9), inequality (10), cities (11), consumption (12), climate (13), oceans (14), land (15), peace (16), partnerships (17).

Aid modalities: project aid, programme/budget support, sector-wide approaches, technical assistance and debt relief; each carries different transaction costs and ownership implications.

ODA = official development assistance; the UN target is 0.7% of donor GNI, with 0.15–0.20% for least developed countries.

Aid effectiveness principles (Paris Declaration 2005, Accra Agenda 2009): ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, mutual accountability.

Aid critiques: tied aid raises costs; conditionality reduces policy space; volatility and fragmentation raise transaction costs; dependency and fungibility are contested.

South–South cooperation and triangular cooperation supplement North–South aid; emerging donors often attach fewer policy conditions.

Debt relief frameworks (HIPC, MDRI) reduced multilateral debt burdens; debt sustainability is assessed by comparing debt service to exports and revenue.

Financing beyond aid: domestic revenue mobilisation, remittances, private investment and blended finance; ODA is small relative to domestic resources in most countries.

Research design: cross-sectional (one point in time), longitudinal/panel (same units over time), and case study (in-depth, limited generalisability).

Sampling: random/probability samples support generalisation; purposive and quota samples are non-probability and limit inference.

Sampling error falls with sample size (roughly proportional to 1/√n); non-sampling errors (coverage, non-response, measurement) do not automatically fall.

Validity = measuring what is intended; reliability = consistency on repetition; a measure can be reliable but invalid.

Indicators must be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound; baselines and targets make progress verifiable.

Correlation does not imply causation; confounding variables and reverse causality require control groups, natural experiments or instrumental variables.

Reading tables and graphs: check units, base years, definitions and whether axes start at zero; a truncated axis exaggerates change.

Triangulation combines methods, sources or researchers to cross-check findings and reduce bias.

Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, no harm, and community feedback; vulnerable groups need additional safeguards.