1. MDG1 is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
What does the UN currently define as
the global poverty rate?
a. $1 a day
b. $0.5 a day
c. $1.25 a day
d. $2 a day
2. What is GDP Per capita (at Constant Rate) as per World Bank in 2021?
a. $2271
b. $1850
c. $1961
d. $2153
This reading is the transcript of an interview with Amartya Sen after he won the Nobel Prize
for his work on welfare economics. He describes the profound impact that living through a
famine had on him at a young age and how that came to shape his later work on the causes of
poverty and hunger. He notes that while economists originally set out to merely understand
the fluctuations of the market, they should then feel compelled to not only understand but
also resolve the world financial crises produced by the capitalist system.
3. Rather than focus on money and capital, as do most economists, Amartya Sen is concerned
primarily with how capitalist economies adversely affect the
a. middle class
b. upper class
c. poor and the hungry
d. government
4. According to Sen, famine is not just caused by a shortage of food but by
a. unemployment
b. a drop in income
c. death and disease
d. both a and b
5. Successful East Asian economies, according to Sen,
a. used the market efficiently but non-dogmatically
b. let the government expand its educational base and help with healthcare
c. supervised land reform
d. all of the above
6. Sen states that economists could help to solve world financial crises by analyzing the
experience of countries with
a. bull markets
b. bear markets
c. successful economies
d. failed economies
7 Who among the following introduced the concept of human development?
a. Amartya Sen
b. Mahbub-ul-haq
c. Jean Drèze
d. A&B
e. A&C
8. What is the most typically used measure of a country's level of development?
a. Technological innovation
b. Mobility
c. Income
d. Gender equity
9. Social outcomes commonly used to measure a country's level of human development
include:
a. Duration of hospital stays during pregnancy and nominal interest rate
b. Infant mortality and adult literacy rate
c. Average Year of Schooling
d. Long and healthy Life
e. all of above exc
10 What does the Gini coefficient measure?
a. General efficiency of the economic system
b. Rule of law
c. Poverty
d. Inequality
11 A central debate about the causes of development in the twentieth century was between
which of the following perspectives?
a. States and markets
b. Equity and reciprocity perspectives
c. GDP and GNI
d. North versus South
11 What do proponents of neoliberalism think about development?
a. Development is basically random
b. Development is a matter of culture
c. Development is best accomplished using the free market.
d. Development is the state's responsibility
12 The author most known for arguing that economic development and social change arise
from the interactions of social classes was:
a. Thomas Friedman
b. Hendrik Spruyt
c. Milton Friedman
d. Karl Marx
13 How would social scientists characterize China's approach to securing economic growth
over the last several decades?
a. Export-led growth
b. Agro-export production
c. Debt-dependent growth
d. Import-substituting industrialization
14 On which of the following economic measures does the United States lead the world?
a. Lowest level of poverty
b. Lowest level of inequality
c. Highest overall GDP
d. Highest GDP per capita
15 Which of the following world regions includes many cases often cited by proponents of
state-led development?
a. Africa
b. East Asia
c. North America
d. Latin America
16 Which of the following regions includes many cases that development scholars consider to
have been problematic over the last several decades?
a. India
b. Africa
c. East Asia
d. Latin America
17 Which of the following terms overlaps closely with the concepts of social connections and
trust?
a. Social capital
b. Human capital
c. Physical capital
d. Economic capital
Jared Diamond's argument about the causes of development focuses on structural factors
beyond a country's control, most notably:
a. Geography
b. Extractive institutions
c. Culture
d. Political leadership
NOTE: There are many examples of the conjunction of extractive economic and political
institutions: North Korea since its formation, Zimbabwe under Mugabe, China under Mao,
the Soviet Union over its entire history, and the Putin regime after its collapse. Political
power in each of these cases was narrowly held, and that power was used to enrich the
political elite, who then deployed their wealth to further entrench their political power.