Emma Tyler, Chapter 13, Question #4

Charles Wheelan centers around the idea of development economics in the thirteenth chapter of Naked Economics. Wheelan mentions multiple different policies ideas that could be implemented in developing countries in order to make them wealthier, and points out certain factors that some countries are affected by that they can't really change (ex: geography). One developing area Wheelan mentioned in the chapter was Saudia Arabia. I especially liked his simple yet effective answer to increasing their real per capita income growth: invest in "women power" (311).  Wheelan writes that in order for Saudi Arabia to grow economically, they need to invest more on the education of women and allow them to participate more in their countries' political and economic life (after all it is the lowest in the world). Wheelan then went on to site an experiment done in the Ivory Coast which found that when both women and men planted cash crops and had bountiful years, women were more likely to spend their abundant dough on food for their families while men were more likely to spend their overflow cash on drinking and smoking. This experiment did not say this is how all men would act this type of situation, but the majority did, proving to development officials that "if they give cash to the female head of the household, it will do more good" (312). The answer to making Saudi Arabia more wealthy in general is laid out plain and simple in this chapter, however due to the religious beliefs of many people in Saudi Arabia, this fix may not be implemented anytime soon.