Exam 7: Production and Growth

What best defines human capital?

Which statement best explains how investment and growth rates relate across countries?

If a production function has constant returns to scale,how can output be doubled?

Over the past 100 years,Canadian real GDP per person has doubled about every 35 years.If in the next 100 years it doubles every 25 years,then what will Canadian real GDP per person be a century from now?

The president of a developing country proposes that his country needs to help domestic firms by imposing trade restrictions.What kind of policies are these?

Cedar Valley Furniture uses 10 workers working 8 hours to produce 160 rocking chairs.What is the productivity of these workers?

The following table shows real GDP per person in a few countries over a period of about a century. a)Does this data support the catch-up theory of economic growth? Explain your answer. b)What additional information would be necessary when testing the catch-up theory?

Why would the opening of a new Canadian-owned factory in Egypt tend to increase Egypt's GDP more than it increases Egypt's GNP?

What might the African governments do to foster higher economic growth?

Which statement best defines productivity?

Which of the following best describes changes in the average well-being in a country?

The catch-up effect says that countries with low income can grow faster than countries with higher income.However,in statistical studies that include many diverse countries,we do not observe the catch-up effect unless we control for other variables that affect productivity.Considering the determinants of productivity,list and explain some things that would tend to prohibit or limit a poor country's ability to catch up with the rich ones.

Which statement best characterizes the variations in real GDP per person and its rate of growth across countries?

If the number of workers in an economy doubled,all other inputs stayed the same,and there were constant returns to scale,what would happen to productivity?

Other things equal,how do relatively poor countries tend to grow?

For background,read the article "Fruit pickers: 'The money we earn is not worth getting out of bed for'" (http: / / goo.gl / MCQcC).This article apparently has very little to do with economic growth theories.However,it offers an excellent opportunity to better understand some important aspects of economic growth and development.Fruit picking is one area where technological progress is slow or nonexistent.For instance,strawberry-picking robots are still far from taking the jobs of the thousands of workers employed in the field.Suppose a worker is paid the minimum wage,which is,let's say $8 in the UK and $3 in Bulgaria.Suppose a worker in the UK is able to pick 10 kilos of strawberries in one hour,the same as a worker in Bulgaria.Suppose all strawberries picked in the UK and Bulgaria are exported to countries such as Norway,where they sell for $10 a kilo. a)Where does a fruit-picking worker have higher productivity,in the UK or in Bulgaria? Why are they paid different wages? b)British people complain that foreign immigrants "steal" their jobs.Why would a British worker not want to take such a job? Why would an employer in the UK wish to hire a Bulgarian worker instead of a British one? More generally,why do developed countries tend to "export" low-productivity jobs? Does this reduce the standards of living in the developed countries?

What is an effect of inward-oriented policies?

Why are Canadian workers more productive than the Chinese?

What would an economist call the saws,lathes,and drill presses that woodworkers at Cedar Valley Furniture use to produce chests and cabinets?

Which statement best defines proprietary technology?