I found it interesting how interest rates can affect a lot of countries and what a huge role in can play in development and eliminating poverty. To be honest I was very confused by this paper but look forward to discussing it more in depth in class

I found it really interesting how even though enrollment in education has increased 3x that since 1970, the returns have not changed. There should be decreasing returns because as the marginal product of labor for each additional educated worker should decrease. It confuses me that this not the case even though the article points out that the technological progress is "Winning the race." I would think that maybe this would be the case because of people who achieve higher education don't study the areas that would result in the most productiveness or most technologically advanced skills. Also I think women's education has obviously increased a lot since 1970 but there is still a large portion of women who after college start a family and don't go into the workforce.

I find it interesting how development and poverty reduction could be at risk due to pollution and climate change since almost all of the developed countries today developed by industrializing and burning fossil fuels that cause climate change and pollution

I thought this article highlighted our discussion in Monday's class about how in order to have country grow and modernize it needs to have an economy of scale and a large enough market to do that. This the classic chicken or the egg question because in order to have an economy of scale you need to have a big enough market to sustain it and vice versa. The case studies in the article show that a lot of intervention by the state which can sometimes be controversial is very necessary. Adopting export-led development strategies and open policy is crucial to growing the economy and markets, but a lot of times this change in a country doesn't happen very smoothly. I do think that a reason for this is partially due to the overcrowding in the market by the U.S., China, most of Europe, etc. so it makes it even harder for developing countries to develop

I think the most interesting part of the paper is the Big Push model. The author details how in economics people tend to pigeon hole themselves in these ideas of perfect competition and constant returns when in reality that doesn't always happen! Why do models have to be exceedingly simplified when the world itself is not simple. The introduction to technology and the "modern sector" is important in development economics and in achieving a high development society

The discussion of SDG's and MDG's is becoming increasingly important in today's day and age. The article mentions how participation by all countries including developing countries like India is crucial to the achievement of these goals. I think something the article has overlooked is applying these goals and rules to organizations particularly organizations like the Olympic or FIFA. These organizations have been the center of human rights violations and sustainability problems, but they are almost always overlooked because it is hard to pin point who is responsible. International organizations that pick different host countries but are compromised of a committee of people that are also from different countries poses a problem. The place of the games and how the construction of the games is conducted becomes a lawless operation since the IOC and FIFA actually have their own set of governance that will take place in the host city. In the case of the Rio Olympics, people were displaced and killed to make room for the games and the city made promises of big stadiums and clean oceans that they simply didn't have the resources for. I really think that as important as it is to ensure countries are following and meeting SDG's and MDG's, it is equally important that international organizations are not overlooked because otherwise their exemption from these commitments can have horrific consequences as seen in Rio and what is currently happening in Qatar for the World Cup.