Question

Difficulty: Very hardMust Be True / Most Strongly Supported

A nation's economy achieves sustained hyper-growth if and only if it rapidly modernizes its infrastructure while maintaining a low inflation rate. A nation cannot rapidly modernize its infrastructure unless it attracts significant foreign direct investment. Furthermore, any nation that imposes strict capital controls is unable to attract significant foreign direct investment. Finally, all nations that refrain from imposing strict capital controls experience occasional periods of currency volatility.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true?

  1. A
    A nation rapidly modernizes its infrastructure if it attracts significant foreign direct investment.
  2. B
    Any nation that maintains a low inflation rate will inevitably achieve sustained hyper-growth.
  3. Any nation's economy that achieves sustained hyper-growth experiences occasional periods of currency volatility.Answer
  4. D
    Nations that impose strict capital controls generally experience lower overall economic stability than those that do not.
  5. E
    A nation cannot experience occasional periods of currency volatility unless it achieves sustained hyper-growth.

Answer

Any nation's economy that achieves sustained hyper-growth experiences occasional periods of currency volatility.
The correct answer follows from a valid conditional chain constructed from the stimulus. Since sustained hyper-growth guarantees infrastructure modernization, which guarantees attracting foreign investment, which requires refraining from strict capital controls, which inevitably leads to currency volatility, it is absolutely true that any nation achieving sustained hyper-growth will experience currency volatility.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Translate the first premise into formal logic.
Sustained Hyper-growth (SHG) → Modernizes Infrastructure (MI) AND Low Inflation (LI).
The phrase 'if and only if' establishes that MI and LI are strict requirements for a nation to achieve SHG.
2
Translate the second premise.
Modernizes Infrastructure (MI) → Attracts Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
The structure 'cannot [A] unless [B]' means that B is a necessary condition for A (A → B).
3
Translate the third premise and take its contrapositive.
Strict Capital Controls (SCC) → NO FDI. Contrapositive: FDI → NO SCC.
To build a continuous logical chain from the previous step, we need to know what happens when FDI is present.
4
Translate the final premise.
NO SCC → Occasional Currency Volatility (OCV).
The phrase 'all [A] experience [B]' directly establishes a sufficient-necessary relationship (A → B).
5
Synthesize the individual statements into a single logical chain.
SHG → MI → FDI → NO SCC → OCV. Therefore, SHG → OCV.
By the transitive property of deductive logic, if the first condition in the chain is met, the final condition is guaranteed.

Key Concept

Conditional Reasoning and Logical Chaining
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