DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
Fall 2013
Lecturer: Dagmara Katreniakova (dkatreni@cerge-ei.cz)
Schedule: Lectures – Mondays 14:35 – 16:15
Exercise sessions – Mondays 16:20 – 17:55
The course starts on Monday, September 16th
and ends on Monday, December 9th
.
Office hours: Mondays 13:00 – 14:30
Course website:
Course description:
The goal of this course is to present an overview of the field of development economics and to discuss
how economic analysis has been applied to issues related to developing countries. We will talk about
topics such as income distribution, poverty and poverty trap, health, education, population growth,
migration, corruption and growth. Classes are opened for discussion and additional topics can be added
in case of interest.
Course requirements:
Written midterm – accounts for 30 points
Written final exam – accounts for 50 points
Quizzes – there will be four short written quizzes, each will account for 5 points (total 20 points)
Recommended literature:
Ester Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee: Poor Economics
Debraj Ray: Development Economics
Dambisa Mayo: Dead Aid
Jeffrey D. Sachs: The end of Poverty
Course content:
(This is a tentative schedule and may be updated based on students’ progress.)
Lecture 1: Introduction I
o What is the course about? Course overview, goals and expectations
o Income distribution of developing countries
o Economic growth, theories of growth
Exercise Session: Economic inequality and its measures
Lecture 2: Introduction II
o Many faces of underdevelopment
Exercise Session: What is poverty? Poverty trap?
Lecture 3: Food
o Does Nutrition based trap exist?
Exercise Session: Introduction to field experiments, quiz no. 1
Lecture 4: Health
o Healthcare behavior in developing countries
Exercise Session: current state of research on improving health conditions, including
nutrition
Lecture 5: Education
o Education and its importance, education production function
o Absenteeism of both, students and teachers and poor performance
Exercise Session: current state of research on education, quiz no. 2
Lecture 6: Family
o Household model
o Fertility decisions, population growth and family planning
Additional Reading: Amartya Sen: 100 million missing women, New York Review of
Books
o Exercise Session: Midterm
Lecture 7: Risk and Insurance
o Are poor under stress? Are poor risk lovers or risk averse?
Exercise Session:
Additional reading: Besley, Timothy, “Nonmarket institutions for credit and risk sharing
in low income Countries,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9, pages 115-127
Lecture 8: Credit
o Economic of lending to the poor
Exercise Session: Microfinance, quiz no. 3
Lecture 9: Savings
o Do poor people want to save? Can poor people save?
Exercise Session: current state of research on credit and savings
Lecture 10: Enterprise activities of poor
Exercise Session: quiz no. 4
Lecture 11: Institutions
o The quality of institutions in developing countries
o The role of institutions in economic development
Exercise Session: Revision
Lecture 12: Final exam