Discuss the extent to which economic growth may benefit an economy

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Discuss the extent to which economic growth may benefit an economy [18]

On the face of it, economic growth is exeedingly beneficial to an economy, with a rise in GDP comes higher employment rates, higher healthcare standards and generally a higher standard of being across the population. But on the other hand, the trade off for all this growth is damage to the environment and potentially a greater inequality of income, whether it be in the same country or abroad.

There are two sides to economic growth, on one hand, people in developed nations benefit from more infrastructure, better food, clothing, more luxury items etc., whereas a by-product of this all it pollution caused by more and more production and consumption, greater stress caused by a more strenuous lifestyle, a higher rate of distruction of our natural resources and a greater divide between the rich and the poor (arguably) as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

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This last point is disputable as some people argue that economic growth benefits everyone as goods get cheaper as firms expand and markets become more crowded, thus helping the poor to survive. They also say that as firms expand to handle the new consumption that it provides employment for the poor. But some oppose this and claim that as firms expand, the educated get employed and the firm replaces the un-skilled worker with new machinery they can invest it, thus reducing the amount of employment for unskilled workers and therefore reducing economic welfare.

Economic welfare is maximise when marginal utility ...

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