Self-study
passage 1
P1
Many political economists believe that the soundest indicator of the economic health of a nation is the nation's gross national product (GNP) per capita—a figure reached by dividing the total value of the goods produced yearly in a nation by its population and taken to be a measure of the welfare of the nation's residents. ███
Economists' perspective ·
Best indicator of nation's economic health is gross national product (GNP) per person
GNP per person = total value of goods produced per year divided by population.
Critique ·
Human indicators are more important than GNP in measuring nation's welfare
Lists examples of human indicators. Nutrition, life expectancy, infant mortality, access to various resources such as water, education, medicine, and more.
P2
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Economists' response ·
Improvements in GNP cause improvements in human indicators
Rebuttal 1 ·
Some nations have high GNP, but but low human indicators
Rebuttal 2 ·
GNP doesn't measure distribution of benefits
Nations can have high GNP even if economic benefits go to a small minority of the population.
P3
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What some nations do ·
Focus on improving human indicators, not GNP
They recognize that material wealth should not be sole indicator of economic health.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
2.
The term "welfare" is used ██ ███ █████ █████████ ██ █████ ████ ████████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
the overall quality ██ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ █ ██████
b
the services provided ██ ███████████ ██ █ ██████████
c
the material wealth █████ ██ ███████████ ██ █ ██████
d
the extent to █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████████
e
government efforts to ████████████ ██████ ██████ ███████ ██ █ █████