1) Owen Barder defines development as a property of economic, social, and political systems, he says that it is not a seperate trait that can be had without good systems since development is part of the systems themselves. This is slightly different compared to Amartya Sen’s definition since he defines it as the expansion of freedoms, which is not tied directly to the systems that a nation has in place, although he also thinks that good systems must be in place for a country to thrive. Overall, they do have similar definitions, but the main difference between them is where development stems from, since Owen Barder says it must be internal, while Amartya sen believes that it can be externally created to some extent.
2) Thomas Thwates tried to make the most simple toaster he could find from scratch. To do this he found the materials that he needed and in the quantities that he needed, such as iron from an ore mine and smelted it into steel. After nine months he was able to finally build the toaster, but since it did not have any insulation on the wires since he was unable to find rubber, it caught on fire almost immediately. He called it a minor success since it did work for a few seconds. This is important in the context of complexity since that toaster that he made he could have bought for 5 euros, which is significantly less effort than building it and maybe a lower cost than the sum of the components that he bought. Complexity and development allows this since it gave him more freedom in his purchase options, such as the toaster. His choice was a result of a good economic, political, and social situation inside of the UK.
3) South Korea and Ghana had a similar level of capital and labor in the 1960, but in the 2010s South Korea was much more advanced. According to traditional economic models of development, which suggest that development can be had through the increase of labor and capital, this does not make sense. The Robert Solo model suggests that a third unknown category called technical change exists, and is the reason why some countries that have similar labor and capital progress so much faster. This third metric is basically the sum of the unknown differences, and has been shown not to be technology, which was the first metric that comes to mind. This demonstrated that development is complex, and cannot be tied to a single factor, so a single solution cannot be the silver bullet in spurring development in a struggling country. According to Owen Barder, it is impossible to “engineer” development, it must be done with trial and error like a biological system.
4) The Harrod Domar model was not effective in predicting outcomes since it only used a few economic factors, labor and capital. His model’s inaccuracy can be shown by South Korea and Ghana, who would be thought to have had similar outcomes but did not. The Walter Rostow model included technical change as a third metric that essentially measures the unknown forces at work on a country’s development. This is seen as more accurate to some extent since the third metric explains why some countries advance faster than others, but since it is unknown it is not too helpful for finding solutions to development. People have tried to quantify this metric, proposing that it has to do with technology for example, but this was incorrect. Current thought suggests that it is a combination of many variables and is too complex to quantify as a single variable, so there cannot be an equation for development. As a result, development cannot be engineered, it must be developed organically. (I got Rostow and Solo mixed up)
5) Solo added a third category of technical change into the Harrod Domar model, which served to explain some of the differences between the development of countries with similar labour and capital. This model is technically more accurate than the Harrod Domar model, but since the extent that technical change affects a country is unknown, it cannot be used to engineer development solutions.
6) The Washington consensus was a standard of reform needed to improve developing countries by freeing up markets. This was a failure since it did not really help at all. Although, it did show that the freedom of markets is not the main issue in development, which can be shown in other ways too, such as the dramatic expansion of China’s economy even under a communist government.
7) The Ajaokuta Steel Works is the primary steel company in Nigeria, but is horribly unproductive. The transition from policy to institutions, including the improvement of the steel works company, was a failure. This (Didn’t get to finish my thought)
8) Haile Sellaise was a Ethiopian dictator that suppressed the development of his own country in order to serve his own needs and the needs of the healthiest members of his country. This demonstrates how corruption can impede the development of a country since corrupt rulers can take measures to actively halt progression, such as Sellaise did.
9) Steve Jones was a biologist that was hired by Unilever to re-engineer soap nozzles to improve the efficiency of soap powder. He took a different approach than the engineers since he used a form of natural selection to find an optimal nozzle shape. His process created a nozzle that was far more efficient, to the magnitude of thousands of times more efficient, than other engineered nozzles. This shows that the best solutions may not be able to be engineered since they contain so many variables that they are too complex to fully quantify. This is also consistent with Jone’s nozzle design since nobody, even him, knew why it worked so well. This idea of evolutionary advancement could be used to improve development
10) Shumpeter’s theory of creative destruction is a sort of evolutionary process in economics where old firms that cannot adapt to changing times will be replaced by better adapted firms. This is evident by Nokia, who entered the mobile phone market with resounding success, but recently have faded away since they have not adapted well to smartphones, and modern phones in general. Some industries will also resist change, such as the music industry, but in the end all industries do change and adapt as time goes on. Entire firms and industries will constantly change and adapt.
11) Barder resists engineering as a way to create development since it is too complex to quantify, instead he suggests that we should look more for a biological solution like jones. Also, each country will develop in its own way so isometric mimicry may not be the best solution to development.
12) Barder, with his idea that we should resist fatalism, says that we should not just assume that a country cannot develop since it’s not already. Everything can adapt and progress so current circumstances will not necessarily last forever. Borlog’s green revolution, for example, expanded agriculture across the world and saved many lives and helped many countries progress such as Mexico and India.