Key Issue 1: 335-342 Development
Field Note: Timbuktu
Commodity chain: links connecting the places that produce and distribute the commodity that is then sold on the market
Each link along the chain adds value to the commodity, therefore the commodity at different chains produces different levels of wealth for that place and people along that one level
Wealth in 13th-16th centuries derived from the ability to control the trans-Sahara trade in gold, ivory, kola nuts, and slaves
Trade patterns eventually shifted with the development of sea trade routes and Timbuktu lost its strategic position, so decline began
What it shows:
Where a place is located in is almost as important than what it sells
Timbuktu: had the ability to regulate trade where the Niger River turned north. It was a last major water source, and a break-of-bulk point.
Gross National Income:
Developing: A country in the process of being made into a technological, production, and socioeconomic well being.
Ways to measure development:
Gross National product (GNP): measure of the total value of the officially recorded goods and services produced by citizens and corporations of a country in a given year.
Gross domestic Product (GDP): only goods are services produced within one country in a given year
Gross National Income (GNI): calculates the monetary worth of what is produced within a country plus the income received from investments outside of the country minus income payments to other countries
GNI:
To compare GNIs across countries geographers must standardize the data. And the only way to do that is to divide GNI by the population of the country
Per capita GNI: is the process of dividing GNI by the population
Example in 2008: Japan - $34,600
U.S- $45,800
Luxembourg- $64,000
India- $2,740

Limitations in GNI:
GNI is limited because it only shows transactions in the formal economy (the legal economy in which the government taxes and monitors)
A key component to the countries in the $1,000 GNI rang is informal economy ( the illegal economy in which the government doesn’t track and tax)
GNI measures only outputs (production)
Example: sale of cigarettes, and cigarettes causes illness and hospitalization it boost the GNI
Dependency ratio: way