ECON M112A
International Development
Description: (Same as Public Policy CM171.) Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 102 or 111. Why are some countries rich, while other countries are poor? What can policymakers do to reduce poverty? Discussion of current research on these questions. Study of both methodologies used to answer questions in development economics, like natural experiments and randomized control trials, as well as relationship between development and institutions, education, growth, culture, and gender. Reading intensive, seminar-style course. Students are expected to read academic articles in economics and actively participate in discussions. Students also learn how to use data to evaluate policies. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - Lectures are discussion based where we would talk about important academic papers in development economics that we were supposed to read before coming to class. You were not expected to understand the methodology in detail too much as it is pretty mathematical most of the time. I think if you are interested in learning to read and think about academic papers in economics, this course is excellent and I could not recommend it enough, even if you are not interested in development economics. You also get some exposure to Stata which is cool for the problem sets and the final project. It certainly isn't enough to teach you anything more than an introductory level of Stata, but it is still good. The class graded on these problem sets in Stata (one of which was kinda reproducing the results of a paper we read in class but simplified), a final research project that did not have to deal with endogeneity entirely, and policy briefings which are where you recommend certain policies or note important things to consider when designing a randomized controlled trial using what you learned from reading the papers in class. My perception is that everyone in the class got an A or something close to that. The professor makes everything super understandable. The workload was about 40 or so pages of academic papers each lecture, which would take me several hours usually but I took notes over the papers generally. I do think that lectures were kinda strange because they seemed to summarize a lot of what you would read, but the discussion questions were really the most valuable part of going to lecture because you got to think about things like identification problems and think critically. One last thing I will mention is that this class is also a graduate course for public policy or something. The graduate students were not actually that intimidating. If you've taken some econometrics you are probably not too far behind them. I partnered with two graduate students for the problem sets, policy briefings, and final project and in my humble opinion, I contributed meaningfully to all of them.
Spring 2021 - Lectures are discussion based where we would talk about important academic papers in development economics that we were supposed to read before coming to class. You were not expected to understand the methodology in detail too much as it is pretty mathematical most of the time. I think if you are interested in learning to read and think about academic papers in economics, this course is excellent and I could not recommend it enough, even if you are not interested in development economics. You also get some exposure to Stata which is cool for the problem sets and the final project. It certainly isn't enough to teach you anything more than an introductory level of Stata, but it is still good. The class graded on these problem sets in Stata (one of which was kinda reproducing the results of a paper we read in class but simplified), a final research project that did not have to deal with endogeneity entirely, and policy briefings which are where you recommend certain policies or note important things to consider when designing a randomized controlled trial using what you learned from reading the papers in class. My perception is that everyone in the class got an A or something close to that. The professor makes everything super understandable. The workload was about 40 or so pages of academic papers each lecture, which would take me several hours usually but I took notes over the papers generally. I do think that lectures were kinda strange because they seemed to summarize a lot of what you would read, but the discussion questions were really the most valuable part of going to lecture because you got to think about things like identification problems and think critically. One last thing I will mention is that this class is also a graduate course for public policy or something. The graduate students were not actually that intimidating. If you've taken some econometrics you are probably not too far behind them. I partnered with two graduate students for the problem sets, policy briefings, and final project and in my humble opinion, I contributed meaningfully to all of them.
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