ECON 3R03 Lecture : 09-01-13
10 Feb 2013
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Course: econ 3r03 - the history of economic growth. Major advances in medicine occurred around the time of the american civil. Point of this digression is to show that it wasn"t advances in medicine that increased life expectancies but economic growth. Better nutrition, better living conditions (less crowded together), better cleanliness and better infrastructure for services such as water and sewage contributed to increasing life expectancy without any material advances in medicine. Not all growth raises welfare, economists distinguish between 2 types of growth. Discussion of the distinction between intensive and extensive growth. Extensive growth is the result of population growth, more people put to work allows economy to grow in absolute, real terms but per capita output remains. Each person isn"t getting better o but rather more people are working. One adverse e ect of extensive growth is the tendency for populations to grow faster than their food supply.
