EC3027: DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS (2017-2018)

This course focuses on the countries of the developing world and tries to ascertain how low-income economies can be set on a track of sustained economic development in order to reduce poverty and achieve levels of wealth akin to developed economies. Development economics, like economics generally, is a subject where there is often much controversy: about how to define an issue, about the economic mechanisms which are at work and how they work, about the respective roles of the market and of the state, and much else. Consensuses may form – often for short periods of time – before fresh controversies break out. This means that there are not always “correct” answers or a single way of looking at an issue but the compensation is that development economics is a subject of lively debates.

This course seeks to explore the main debates in development economics. The majority of the lectures are devoted to a close examination of the evolution of arguments about some topic, with perhaps a particular focus upon a number of key contributions to the literature. This focus upon the important debates means that, inevitably, the course cannot be comprehensive in its coverage. The initial lecture of each section of the course seeks to set out an overview of the main issues but there is a limit to how much can be achieved in a single lecture. Consequently, you will have to put in the work yourself to fill in the gaps.

• Either Programme Level 3 or Programme Level 4

• Either EC2002 Microeconomics 2 (Passed) or EC2003 Intermediate Microeconomics (Passed)
• Either EC2502 Macroeconomics 2 (Passed) or EC2503 Intermediate Macroeconomics (Passed)
• Any Undergraduate Programme (Studied)

• EC3006 Development Economics (Studied)
• (Studied)