Exam 2 Study Guide

What milestone did the world’s population reach around 1820?

When death rates are falling more quickly than birth rates, the country is in stage __ of
the demographic transition. In 2009, what world region had the most rapid rate of natural
increase in the population?

Over the past 40 years, the total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen by half or more
in East and South Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Is the
world’s population likely to double in your lifetime?

What country is on track to replace China as the world’s most populated country?

What “preventive check” did Malthus recognize in
later years? Up to the time of Malthus, what tended to expand in response
to economic gains?

What two effects of rising real wages did Gary Becker identify? Which of these two
effects must be stronger, given what has happened since 1820?

What region has a far higher boy/ girl ratio (121/100) than elsewhere in the world?
What two “mechanisms” are likely responsible for such a high ratio? (Undergraduates)
The world is missing ____ million women, according to Amartya Sen.

(T or F) In 1960, more than half the population age 15 and over in the developing
world had never attended school. (T or F) In 2010, less than one-fifth of the population
15 and over in the developing world had never attended school.

Developing countries at all income levels have made substantial progress in raising
school enrollment ratios, but what is still a challenge in primary school, particularly for
the poorest income quintile. (T or F) Between 1975 and 2005, there were big increases in
secondary school enrollment in all regions except Latin America.

T or F) The female/male ratio of years of schooling in developing countries rose by
nearly 25 percentage points between 1960 and 2010. (T or F) Latin America has almost
achieved gender parity in schooling, but South Asia has a long way to go.

Why are learning outcomes so poor in many poor countries?
A. too many unqualified teachers
B. absenteeism among students and teachers
C. too few books and other teaching materials
D. all of the above

A positive relationship between average earnings and average years of schooling
A. holds for men and women
B. holds in fast growing economies but not in stagnant ones
C. holds across income levels and regions
D. both A and C

Which of the following claims about the returns to schooling is false?
A. They are higher in the developing countries
B. They are highest at the secondary schooling level
C. They are higher than for alternative investment opportunities
D. They are higher for women than for men

T or F) As Ted Schultz anticipated, the convergence in schooling levels between rich
and poor countries in recent decades has led to a convergence in per capita incomes.

Are the low completion rates for primary school in low-income countries due more to
a lack of household demand or a lack of school supply, according to research findings?

According to the research by Michael Kremer, what could be done
to improve school attendance?

(T or F) In a nationwide study of primary schools in India, the absentee rate for
teachers was one-fourth. Across nearly 3,000 primary schools in India, how many head
teachers (school principals) had ever dismissed a teacher for repeated absences?

In Esther Duflo’s experiment with one-room schools in rural India,
what pay scheme reduced the teacher absence rate and improved student performance?

The median ages of death in Denmark and Sierra Leone differ by
A. more than 70 years
B. about 50 years
C. about 30 years
D. less than 20 years

The majority of rural inhabitants of Sierra Leone lack access to what two essentials?
Life expectancy in Sierra Leone is about what it was in the United States in _______.

For the world, what was the average life expectancy at birth until 1800? (T or F)
From 1960 to 2008, life expectancy in low- and middle-income countries increased by
more than 50 percent. What has reduced life expectancy in parts of southern Africa by a
decade or more?

In what world region do famines still occur regularly?

Which is a more important determinant of health: the level of
affluence or the spread of scientific knowledge?

(T or F)
Serious market failures – externalities, public goods, information issues, etc. – arise in the control
of infectious diseases.

In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV epidemics are stable or declining.

(T or F) Women and girls account for more than half of the people living with HIV.
(T or F) About half of HIV-positive people in sub-Saharan Africa do not know that they
are infected.

What disease claims the lives of 2,000 children per day, with more than half of deaths
from the disease occurring among the poorest 20-percent of the world’s population?

An effective treatment for TB, requiring a six-month regimen, costs
_____ per patient.

Which of the following characteristics is (are) distinctive about agriculture?
A. Its share of GDP remains about the same over time
B. The poor spend a large share of their budgets on its products
C. Its producers deal with risks from both weather and price fluctuations
D. Both B and C

(T or F) On average, agricultural growth reduces poverty more effectively than
industrial growth. (T or F) In sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia, the rural
poor vastly outnumber the urban poor.

Agricultural growth reduces poverty much more effectively where
A. Gini ratios for land ownership are smaller
B. production techniques are more labor-intensive
C. the poor are mainly urban residents (food consumers)
D. Both A and B

Which region lagged far behind other developing regions in adopting modern crop
varieties (MVs)?
A. Africa
B. East Asia
C. South Asia
D. Latin America

(T or F) If the green revolution had not occurred, 32-42 million more preschool
children would have been malnourished. (T or F) Average cereal yields in East Asia are
four times higher than in sub-Saharan Africa.

Farmers and
traders in Africa were able to obtain knowledge about market prices, wages, and weather
much more cheaply with the spread of _______________________.

Secure land rights can raise agricultural productivity by creating access to ________
markets.

By how many times has global trade increased in the last three decades? Is this figure
larger or smaller for the developing countries?

The bulk of world trade is exchanged between ______________________
economies. What country replaced Germany as the world’s largest exporter of goods in
2009?

42. (T or F) Manufactures have replaced primary products as the main exports of East
Asia, Latin America, and South Asia, but not in Africa. (T or F) Small countries (by
population size) tend to trade more than larger ones.

What is the cheapest and most important way to transport goods between countries?
How much does being landlocked raise shipping costs?

Among economies that specialize in
exporting primary products, the dominant export is usually petroleum.

(T or F) All advanced economies had histories of trade protection
followed by greater openness.

International trade can reduce poverty when it
A. involves unskilled employment opportunities for labor-intensive products
B. puts small-scale producers in competition with imported products
C. reduces the prices of imported necessities for consumers
D. both A and C

What two countries are rapidly becoming two of the largest markets
in the world for other countries?

Low wages in “sweatshops” are determined by
A. the productivity of local workers (the demand for labor)
B. the opportunity costs of local workers (the supply of labor)
C. what firms pay to workers in other countries where they operate
D. both A and B

(T or F) In most years the United States collects more tariff revenue
from poor countries than from rich countries.

What did mercantilists seek to maximize? What did they seek to minimize?

Did the mercantilists believe that international trade
could benefit both nations?

David Hume viewed free trade as a conveyor belt for transmitting ___________ and
___________________________ across borders.

Did Adam Smith favor liberalizing trade unilaterally or reciprocally,
on balance?

What trade policy was rampant between 1914 and 1945? What country helped to
(partially) restore a world of open trade?

How does the pace of trade liberalization now compare to the 1980s and 1990s?
What country is the conspicuous exception to this trend?

How many people live in the 25 “new globalizing” developing countries, where ratios
of trade to income have risen and tariffs have fallen substantially? How many people live
in the 50 “less globalized” developing countries, where ratios of trade to income have
been stagnant and tariffs have fallen modestly?

How do average applied tariffs in developing countries compare to those in developed
countries?

Applied average tariffs in developing countries were 30% in 1985; what was the
corresponding figure in 2005?

What does Razeen Sally say that most of Asia did during the global
economic transformation of the last two centuries – especially its political and populous
giants?

Have China’s border barriers reached southeast Asian levels (about 10 percent or
below)?

What country is now the unilateral engine of freer trade? Where is future external
trade liberalization least likely?