A-Level Economics: Globalisation and Development

Globalisation and development close the A-level macro syllabus with its most evaluative material: multi-cause phenomena, contested strategies, and measurement debates — the natural territory of the 25-mark essay. This quiz structures all of it.

The globalisation questions identify the genuine drivers — falling transport and communication costs, trade liberalisation, and the growth of multinational corporations integrating global supply chains — against plausible non-drivers, and weigh MNCs from the host country's perspective: technology transfer and employment on the benefit side, with no guarantee of competitive or monetary stability on the other.

The measurement questions enforce the GDP-versus-HDI comparison: income per head as an average that conceals distribution and non-monetary welfare, against the Human Development Index's three components — health, education and income — tested precisely, including what the HDI does not contain.

The barriers-to-development questions cover the standard catalogue with mechanisms: primary product dependency through price volatility and deteriorating terms of trade (the Prebisch-Singer logic), the savings gap as the shortfall between domestic savings and required investment, and capital flight draining the funds available for productive domestic investment.

The strategy questions supply the debate material: trade-led growth argued through comparative advantage and market access, foreign aid's standard criticisms (dependency, corruption-diversion), and microfinance's actual objective — financial inclusion for those outside the formal banking sector.

Each explanation states the argument and its counterargument where one exists, mirroring the balanced-evaluation structure development essays are marked on, and completing this category's macro sequence from indicators through policy to the global economy.

• Identify the genuine drivers of globalisation and assess MNC impacts
• Compare GDP per capita and the HDI as development measures
• Explain primary product dependency, the savings gap and capital flight as barriers
• Evaluate trade-led growth, aid and microfinance as development strategies
• Construct balanced arguments with mechanisms on both sides

Aligned to "The global context — globalisation" of the DfE's GCE A level economics subject content, extended into the development economics that A-level specifications build on it: measures of development, barriers, and strategies.