Economic Development and Crises the Term Paper

All these situations impact the overall morale of the staff members, and as such their levels of performance and commitment to the employers. The scenarios are more dramatic for the people who are actually downsized, but the negative impacts are also observed at the level of the remaining staff members, who are presented with fewer opportunities for personal and professional development. The International Labor Office argues that in times of crisis, employers invest less in the training of the staff members, once again limiting their development, as well as the overall development of the firm.

A second relevant source in the search for an answer to the posed question is represented by Andy Kilmister's the economic crisis and its effects. Unlike the previous source which draws on the economic crises in Mexico (1994-1995) and Indonesia (1997-1998), Kilmister focuses on the economic crisis commenced in 2008 in the United States. At the level of economic development, he identifies the following impacts:

Important devaluation of capitals and assets. This makes it more difficult not only to support economic development, but also to assess it

Financial cost cuts, which materialize in a series of social and economic problems, but also the decrease of production capabilities. This in turn impacts the countries' export operations and reduces the strength of their competitive positions within the international marketplace.

Prices of basic commodities are also expected to fluctuate. On a first note, they would increase in order to cover for the new costs and risks, but it would then be necessary to decrease them in order to ensure minimum access of the population to the basic commodities.

Aside from the impacts observable at the national level, the crises also impact economic development at an international level. Countries tend to protect themselves and they as such focus on exports, but these are more difficult to complete. As each state promotes its own productions, restrictions on imports would be imposed, and these, alongside with other policies, would generate international tensions. In such a context, it would be expected for the countries to seek stability and growth at an internal level, rather than focus on unsustainable exports. Domestic demand would however be decreased due to diluted purchasing power.

Overall, it is rather difficult to present and discuss all the means in which the economic crisis impacts economic development. And this complexity is raised by the fact that each individual context of economic development is characterized by specific features -- such as domestic level of consumption, purchasing power, state of economic development and so on. At a general level nevertheless, the crisis will more often generate negative impacts upon the economic development and will also make it more difficult for the practicing and academic communities to assess the real impacts and the real development of the economic field.

References:

Kilmister, a., the economic crisis and its effects, International Viewpoint, 2008, http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1581 last accessed on April 7, 2011

Miller, C., the human development impact of economic crises, United Nations Development Programme, 2005, http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2005/papers/hdr2005_miller_calum_19.pdf last accessed on April 7, 2011

Palley, T.I., America's exhausted paradigm: macroeconomic causes of the financial crisis and great recession, 2009

Reinhart, C.M., Rogoff, K.S., Is the 2007 U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis so different? An international historic comparison, 2008

International Labor Office, Adjustment and human resources development: sixth item on the agenda, Issue 6, International Labor Organization, 1992