Expanding the Solow Growth Model. Would preventing starvation be beneficial to the overall income?

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Economics - Economic Cycle and Growth grade: 10 Quest University Canada course: Poverty Inequality & Development language: English abstract: The need for nutritional intake is probably the most fundamental physical need of human beings. Still although many people have never experienced starvation almost one billion in the world are suffering from malnourishment in our world. This is surely an undesirable condition itself. This paper further expands on the problem of malnourishment by arguing that it decreases the effectiveness of labor and thus has a negative effect on total production and growth. There is wide evidence in the academic literature on the damaging effects of malnourishment ranging from restricted human development especially of children to increased mortality rates. These papers have shown that starvation negatively affects both physical and mental abilities which gives reason to assume decreased effectiveness of labor as a result of malnourishment. According to the United Nations we will define those suffering from malnourishment as the „people whose dietary energy consumption is continuously below a minimum dietary energy requirement for maintaining a healthy life and carrying out a light physical activity'' (Patel 2012). The proposed model is intended to demonstrate that preventing starvation may be beneficial to overall income. It does notclaim thatreducinghungerdoesnot have othervalues.Aswearedealing with aglobal problem the model will represent the world economy as one economy so that national income equals global income.