I have been assigned to find indicators of development in acountry I have found

Question

I have been assigned to find indicators of development in acountry I have found literacy rates, number of people per doctor,gross national product, % people employed in agriculture, %population with access to clean water, population density, % peopleliving in urban areas, population growth rates, infant mortalityrate. I now have to put them in order of importance in measuringthe development, but cannot decide that order, any help would beappreciated. thank you Sue I have been assigned to find indicators of development in acountry I have found literacy rates, number of people per doctor,gross national product, % people employed in agriculture, %population with access to clean water, population density, % peopleliving in urban areas, population growth rates, infant mortalityrate. I now have to put them in order of importance in measuringthe development, but cannot decide that order, any help would beappreciated. thank you Sue

Explanation / Answer

How effective is the legal system in the country? Howcorrupt is the government? Does the government allow theownership of private property? Is there a healthy bankingindustry or credit market? How easy is it for people to getloans? In my development economics class, these problems came up alot when we tried to analyze the economies of developing countries,and we tend to take them for granted.
A lot of what you list are demographic measurements. Many of them are correlated with low growth, but do theyactually cause the low growth?
If I had to measure your indicators, I would probably put themin this order (most important first): gross national product or GNPper capita, access to clean water, percent employed inagriculture, literacy rates, infant mortality, populationdensity.
We usually look at GDP per capita or GNP per capita as themeasure of economic strength. Further, the percent of peoplein agriculture usually goes down as the economy develops. Unfortunately, the US has a fairly high infant mortality ratecompared to other western nations, and population density does notnecessarily mean economic growth.
So, it is kind of hard but hopefully that helped.    

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