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The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress

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The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress Economic & Social Affairs DESA Working Paper No. 31 ST/ESA/2006/DWP/31 September 2006 The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, and David Rosnick Abstract Th is paper examines data on economic growth and various social indicators and compares the past 25 years (1980-2005) with the prior two decades (1960-1980). Th e paper fi nds that the past 25 years in low- and middle-income countries have seen a sharp slowdown in the rate of economic growth, as well as a decline in the rate of progress on major social indicators including life expectancy and infant and child mortality. Th e authors conclude that economists and policy-makers should devote more eff ort to determining the causes of the economic and development failure of the last quarter-century. JEL Classifi cation: O10, O40, O11 Keywords: economic development, growth, social indicators, growth failure, developing countries, education, health Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., e-mail: [email protected]. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: Th e Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. Dean Baker is a macroeconomist and Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., e-mail: [email protected]. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. David Rosnick is a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C., e-mail: [email protected]. Prior to joining CEPR, Dr. Rosnick worked as a Research Associate (post-doctoral) at the North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science. Comments should be addressed by email to the authors. Contents Standards of comparison ................................................................................................................. 2 Th e slowdown in economic growth ................................................................................................. 3 Reduced progress in health outcomes .............................................................................................. 5 Reduced progress in education ........................................................................................................ 10 Exceptions: China and India ........................................................................................................... 14 Conclusion: What went wrong? ...................................................................................................... 17 References ....................................................................................................................................... 18 UN/DESA Working Papers are preliminary documents circulated in a limited number of copies and posted on the DESA website at http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers to stimulate discussion and critical comment. Th e views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily refl ect those of United Nations the United Nations Secretariat. Th e designations Department of Economic and Social Aff airs and terminology employed may not conform to 2 United Nations Plaza, Room DC2-1428 United Nations practice and do not imply the New York, N.Y. 10017, USA expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part Tel: (1-212) 963-4761 • Fax: (1-212) 963-4444 of the Organization. e-mail: [email protected] Typesetter: Valerian Monteiro http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress1 Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, and David Rosnick Over the past 25 years, a number of economic reforms have taken place in low and middle-income countries. Th ese reforms, as a group, have been given various labels: ‘liberalization’, ‘globalization’ or ‘free-market’2 are among the most common descriptions. Among the reforms widely implemented have been the reduction of restrictions on international trade and capital fl ows, large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises, tighter fi scal and monetary policies (higher interest rates), labour market reforms, and increasing accumula- tion of foreign reserve holdings. Many of these reforms have been implemented with the active support of multilateral lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as the G-7 governments, and have often been required in order for countries to have access to credit from these and other sources. But regardless of origin, labels or political perspectives, there is a general consensus that the majority of developing countries have benefi ted economically from the reforms, even if they have sometimes been accompanied by increasing inequality or other unintended consequences (De Rato, 2005). Th is paper looks at the available data on economic growth and various social indicators—includ- ing health outcomes and education—and fi nds that, contrary to popular belief, the past 25 years have seen sharply slower rates of economic growth and reduced progress on social indicators for the vast majority of low and middle-income countries. Of course, it is still possible that some or even all of the policy reforms of the past 25 years have had net positive eff ects, or that they will have such an impact at some point in the future. But the fact that these eff ects have not yet shown up in the data for developing countries as a group—and that, in fact, the data show a marked decline in progress over the last quarter-century—is very signifi cant. If the data and trends presented below were well known, it would very likely have an impact on policy discussions and research. Most importantly, there would be a much greater interest in fi nding out what has gone wrong over the last 25 years. In order to evaluate the progress of the last 25 years, it is necessary to have a benchmark for com- parison. In other words, for the world as a whole, there is almost always economic growth, technological progress, and therefore, social progress over time. Th e relevant question is not whether there has been income growth and social progress, but the rate of such progress as compared with what has been feasible in the past. For this paper, we have chosen to compare the past 25 years (1980-2005)3 with the previous 20 years (1960-1980). Th is is a fair comparison. While the 1960s were a period of exceptional economic per- formance, the 1970s suff ered from two major oil shocks that led to worldwide recessions: in 1974-1975, and again at the end of the decade. Th e seventies were also a period of high infl ation in both developing and developed countries. So this twenty-year period is not a particularly high benchmark for comparison with the most recent 25 years. If the 1950s were included, it would have made the benchmark for comparison 1 Acknowledgements: Egor Kraev, Luis Sandoval, Dan Beeton, Ji Hee Kim, Jamie Strawbridge, and Nihar Bhatt provided research assistance for this paper. 2 Th e latter term, as well as ‘free trade’, is inaccurate as a matter of economics, since the reforms have included very costly forms of protectionism—e.g. increased patent and copyright protection—as well as such policies as fi xed exchange rates, which are the opposite of ‘free-market’ policies. 3 For some indicators, the most recent data does not extend to 2005, e.g., life expectancy goes only to 2002. 2 DESA Working Paper No. 31 higher, since the 1950s were generally a period of good growth for the developing world. But there is not much good data for the 1950s; and many of the developing countries did not become independent until the late 1950s or 1960s. Standards of comparison One way to compare the performance of the two periods (1980-2005 and 1960-1980) would be to simply compare how each group of countries did in the fi rst period with the same group of countries’ performances for the second period. Th e problem with such a comparison is that it may be more diffi cult to make the same amount of progress from a higher level than when starting from a lower level. For example, this is certainly true for some levels of life expectancy: it would be more diffi cult to raise life expectancy from 70 to 75 years than to raise it from 50 to 55. A comparison of the same countries for the two periods would therefore tend to fi nd a diminished rate of progress simply because of this inherent diffi culty that comes from progress dur- ing the fi rst period. Th is is not what we want to measure. To get around this problem, we divide the countries into fi ve groups, depending on their starting point at the beginning of each of the two periods. For example, if we look at Figure 1, there are fi ve groups of countries sorted by per capita income. Th e middle quintile includes countries with an income per person between $2,364 and $4,031 (in constant 2000 dollars). Th ese are countries that started out either in 1960 or 1980 with a gross domestic pro duct (GDP) per person in this range. Th e other quintiles range from the poorest ($355-$1,225) to the richest ($9,012-$43,713). Looking at the middle quintile, at the bottom of the graph, we can see that there were 24 countries that started the 1960s in this range of per capita GDP ($2,364 to $4,031), but 33 countries started the 1980s in this range. Th is is to be expected, as some of the countries from the bottom two quintiles moved into the middle quintile as a result of their growth during the fi rst period.4 On this basis, we can make a fair 4 In this data set there are also 65 countries (out of 175) for which there are only data for the 1980-2005 period, and not for 1960-1980. Th e number of countries in each group also changes as countries move up from one quintile to the next on the basis of progress in the fi rst period.
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