ACADEMIC ESSAY

The paradox of natural resource occurence and economic development in developed and underdeveloped countries

The paradox of natural resource occurence and economic development in developed and underdeveloped countries

Introduction

Developed countries have a high income per capita, ie, a higher average per capita income above $ 10,000 a year, a powerful and technologically advanced industry, a high standard of living, reflected in the development of infrastructure and in the quantity and quality of health services, educational, cultural, etc.. moreover, a good part of the population has a high level of consumption.

Discussion & Analyses

The underdeveloped countries have low per capita income, which normally does not reach $ 2,000 per year, a small or emerging industrial development, but often depends on foreign investment and is based on labor and the high potato energy, natural resources primarily for export, a strong dependence on foreign technology, trade and credit, a reduced standard of living, with poor services and inaccessible to a large proportion of the population, poor infrastructure, a high rate illiteracy, a very high population growth, and low consumption. In addition, political instability, corruption and social inequality are commonplace in these States (Bertaut, 2002).

Underdevelopment: After the Second World War began to speak of underdevelopment, to refer to poor countries (Forey, 2002). Generally, this term is used in an evolutionary sense: thus, the United Nations called on countries as countries developing or developing, as opposed to the developed countries. By 1950, Alfred Sauvy used the term Third World to refer to poor countries, compared with the Third Estate, the lowest stratum of French society in the late eighteenth

In the middle of 1970 did the term South to refer to poor countries, considered as a hemisphere South were developed while the northern hemisphere, although in both hemispheres there are all kinds of countries. Later called peripheral countries that are in a position of dependence on countries' center or central to exert a dominant role (Judt, 2010). North and South concepts do not describe exactly two geographic hemispheres, as some countries have a high southern hemisphere development, while other northern hemisphere have a little development. Most developed countries are mainly large part of European states, Canada. U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand. An intermediate development is presented as a Soviet republics Russia: Brazil and certain countries in Latin America mired in a prolonged crisis after decades of prosperity, and some Asians start to grow, such as Malaysia and Singapore.

At the opposite extreme are the world's poorest countries, which are located in South and East Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Central (Haiti), and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In the past decades was used per capita income of a resident to measure their degree of wealth and development (Reid, 2009). This variable, however, does not reflect the unequal distribution of wealth. Thus, for example, places like Brunei or Gulf States oil-rich and sparsely populated always appeared

Very high per capita income when, in fact, wealth is accumulated in a few hands and the vast majority of the population remained ...