Owen Barder Written Response

1. How does Owen Barder define development? How does he extend Amartya Sen’s definitiion to include the idea of complexity?

Barder defined development as a product of the economic and socal system rather than just the sum of the wellbeing of the people. For this reason, he is also attempting to understand the wideranging complexities of the world, showing there are a mulititude of factors that interact to make the end product of developemnt. At times, Amartya Sen’s definition seems rather simple and like it should be easier than it is: just increase political, economic, and other freedoms so that people are happier. Barder instead describes how this is a complex task and not just done by one action or a string of simple actions. For example, Barder runs frames the complexity of the situation with the toaster analogy. He describes a man trying to create a simple $5 toaster from scratch, but he fails miserable. This is an example of a task that at first seems simple being overwhelmingly complex. Similarily, Barder presents various real life examples of complexities. He describes the short comings of past models which looked at only one or a few factors. He showed the failure in thinking that the solution came from just focusing on capital, saving, technology, aid, policies, institutions, or politics. Instead, Barder illustrates that it is a complex compilation of these factors which is near impossible to explain or understand. For this reason, he advocates for an expirimental approach of selective randomization similar to his example with the nozzle which was most effective.

1. Who was Thomas Thwaites and what was his “toaster project”? Was he successful? What is the significance of this example in the context of Barder’s talk about complexity and development?

Thomas Thwaites was a man who attempted to create a toaster from scratch. The toaster that he stripped down to understand turned out to have over 300 parts and be much more complex than he first imagined. The toaster project was unsuccessful since it ended up exploading without the proper rubber to insulate and protect from fire. The importance of this example is that it shows that a project which at first seems easy is much more complex than imagined. This is Barder’s main point as he seeks to show that the global development issue is a complex web of factors and variables which is nearly impossible for us to comprehend.This contrasts slightly from Amartya Sen’s view where it is a simple method of increasing the freedoms of the people. Again, this is why he is an advocate for an adaptive and experiemtnal appraoch akin to the nozzle production that he mentioned. It provides an approach that is not contingent on the person’s comprhension of the topic, as there are too many factors to fully understand and realize, but rather addresses the issue by selective evolution which produces solutions which would be unthought of by the human mind.

1. Barder compared the economic growth of South Korea and Ghana between 1960 and 2010. Why was this example instructive as part of his talk? What did this comparison demonstrate when used as the basis to validate (or invalidate) economic models?

Barder showed that at first South Korea and Ghana had similar incomes, and that Korea actually had lower incomes. Over time, however, South Korea’s income skyrocketed in comparison with Ghana’s. This illustrated a striking difference between the countries besides similar starting points and aid initiatives. The point illustrates that there is more factors on development than those which we initially believe. This was instructive to further show his point of the intimidating coplexities of human development with the intersection of multiple variables which all work together with unknown importance to create a final product. This comparison invalidated previous economic model since it proved that economic and human development does not boil down to one factor, but consists of a multitude of unseen impactors. This is why Barder continues to argue for viewing development as a complex, adaptive, and evolutionary issue and to treat it as such with experimental models.

1. What was the Harrod-Domar model? What are the two fundamental variables in this model? Who was Walter Rostow and what the impact of his work on development? Was the Harrod-Domar model effective at predicting development outcomes?

The harrod-domar model was an economic growth model that attempted to boil economic growth down to two factors: capital and labor. It believed that if capital and labor are the two facotrs which impact output, if not single handedly, the most. It thouhgt that if you were able to increase both capital and labor, the economic output of a region would skyrocket. Walter Rastow came up with the idea that there was a cyclic nature to economic development. He believed that capital and labor were imporant, but that if a country recieved the right amount of aid, they would then be able to save and become self sufficient. This thinking brought forth the idea with savings was the most important thing for a country to become and stay self-sustaining. The Harrod-Domar model proved to not be entirely effective in predicring development outocmes, as is evident in the South Korea and Ghana example.

1. What was the Robert Solow model and how did it address the limitations of the Harrod-Domar model? Was this model successful as predicting economic growth?

Robert Solow’s model was called neoclassical growth theory. It was simiular to the Harrod-Domar model in that it still took into account the captial and labor of an area and it’s impact on development. Solow’s model included the aspect of technical change in his model as a third factor to address the limitation of the Harrod-Domar model. This third factor was ill-defined, however, but still managed to be a better fit for the data than strictly a view of capital and labor. In reality, the Solow model is more of just an accounting process than a model, but this does not stop it from fitting the data much better than then Harrod-Domar model. It’s limitaitons come from the fact that teachnology is still in lower economic countries but it has failed to make a sweeping impact.

1. What was the Washington Consensus? How did it propose to improve upon models of economic growth? Was it a success? How did it affect policies? Impact on markets?

The Washington Consensus was a list of 10 policies which were thought to have a wide range of impacts on economic development. This approach saw government policies as the driving point for econoimc growth so sought to change policies to favor expansion. It thought that with larger political freedoms and less econoimc restrictions the economy would begin to flourish. It was not an overwhelming success because it again was looking at only one factor (polcies) when there are so many more. It was too limited of an approach to be truly successful. It had an underwhelming impact on markets, much less than was anticipated.

1. What was the Ajaokuta Steel Works? How did it illustrate the transition from a focus on policies to institutions. How productive has the Nigerian steel works proven to be?

The Ajaokuta steel works was a company project that was meant to increase the economic development of Nigeria. The thought behind it was that it would give labor and capital to institute economic growth per the Harrod-Domar model. This was an unsuccessful initiative howevvere because it failed to produce any steel or have an impact on the economic development. The reason for this failure was because of poor management and corruption. For this reason there was a transition to looking at the institutions of the area such as land tenure, property rights, corruption, presidential term limits, natural perseverance, and multi-pary elections to stop corruption.

1. Who was Haile Sellasie? What is the significance of Kapuscinski’s book the Emperor? How did Ethiopia exemplify the suppression of emergent systemic change? Do you agree with Barder’s interpretation

Haile Sellasie was the emperor of Ethiopia. Kapuscinki’s book the Emperor documents Haile Sellasie’s rule of Ethiopia and exemplified the suppression that was in place under his rule. It showed the corruption and the hoarding of resources by the elite. I woulda agree because it seemed to decrease the freedoms of the people.

1. Who was Steve Jones? What did he do at Uni-Lever? Was he successful? How significant were his results?

Steve Jones was an engineer at Uni-lever who was attempting to increase the effiicency of a soap producing nozzle. He used an evolutionary process rather than purely trying to engineer it. He created a random set of 10 nozzles, pi9cked the one which was most succesful, and then randomized off of that one. It proved to be extremely succesful and illustrated an exponential increase in efficiency which clearly outpreformed anything a human mind could create. It shows that selective evolution is a much more powerful tool in instituting significant and groundbreaking change. This sentiment is proven repeatedly by biology.

1. What is the significance of Schumpeter’s idea of creative destructive? How does it relate to firms and industries?

The significane of Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction is that it allows for a ctitical feed back loop. It means that a product is created, tested, examined, and then must be reproduced. This allows for evolutionary change over many generations to then create the final product which is most effective and desirable, simiarily to the evolutionary process done by Steve Jones. It relate to firms and industries beacuse it allows them to create and evaluate, producing the best product.

1. Why does Barder recommend resisting engineering as a policy implication? Does he suggest a different approach? What did he mean by his use of the term, iso-morphic mimicry?

He recommends against engineering because evolutionary production is much more succesful as a process. It produces variations which are more effective and would not be thought of at first by the human mind using engineering. Isomorphic mimicry is taking the cues of one success and trying to replicate it in a differing environment. He recomends against this because it fails to consider the differing factors in each environment.

1. What did Barder mean by “resist fatalism”? Who was Norman Borlaug and what is the green revolution?

Bader meant to not just accept the outcomes. Instead, he argues that we must use an evolutionary process to change outcomes. Norman Borlaug was a farmer who used selective pressure to create more desirable plants. These desirable traits could include increased height or resistance to pests and other infections. This allowed agricultural production to be more desirable and efficient with larger, higher quality yields. This same method of selective could and should be adapated to human development goals.