Syllabus: Development Economics (MA) Julia Schwenkenberg
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Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation
14 OCTOBER 2019 Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, founded in 1739, is an independent organisation whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines. BOX 50005 (LILLA FRESCATIVÄGEN 4 A), SE-104 05 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN TEL +46 8 673 95 00, [email protected] WWW.KVA.SE Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel October 14, 2019 Despite massive progress in the past few decades, global poverty — in all its different dimensions — remains a broad and entrenched problem. For example, today, more than 700 million people subsist on extremely low incomes. Every year, five million children under five die of diseases that often could have been prevented or treated by a handful of proven interventions. Today, a large majority of children in low- and middle-income countries attend primary school, but many of them leave school lacking proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics. How to effectively reduce global poverty remains one of humankind’s most pressing questions. It is also one of the biggest questions facing the discipline of economics since its very inception. -
GDP in the Dock
COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS free online services, because the relevant statistics are not col- lected or do not fit easily into existing categories. There is even a mini-boom in ALFRED EISENSTAEDT/GETTY books about economic statistics. A decisive The Great coalition is shaping Invention: The up in favour of mov- Story of GDP and ing away from GDP. the Making (and The question is what Unmaking) of the Modern World to use instead. EHSAN MASOOD In The Great Inven- Pegasus: 2016. tion, Ehsan Masood, editor of policy peri- odicals Research Europe and Research Fort- night, argues for an improved GDP. Into this single metric for economic-activity indica- tors — defined as the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country — he would combine environmental impacts and human well-being. His book traces the history of GDP since its creation, as well as the calls for alternatives, mainly from environmentalists. Masood agrees with the sentiment of suggestions to use ‘dashboards’ that incorporate other economic data and supplementary indicators, but he concludes that GDP matters. As he writes of countries that adopted it: “The act of measuring their economies would ultimately determine how their economies would be managed.” And it matters despite, or because of, its flaws. GDP is too entrenched to be successfully replaced, he finds; instead, it needs radical reform. FORMATIVE FACTORS GDP began, as Masood notes, as an aggre- gate measure when the need arose for governments to manage economies during the Depression in the 1930s and the Sec- ond World War. Pioneers of the statistics involved, such as US economist and Nobel John Maynard Keynes (right, with Henry Morgenthau) laid the foundations for the GDP metric. -
Boa Cover Pages
5TH EUROSTAT COLLOQUIUM ON MODERN TOOLS FOR BUSINESS CYCLE ANALYSIS Jointly organised by EUROSTAT and European University Institute (Florence, Italy) Luxembourg, 29th September – 1st October 2008 Monetary Policies and Low-Frequency Manifestations of the Quantity Theory Thomas Sargent Paolo Surico Monetary Policies and Low-Frequency Manifestations of the Quantity Theory∗ Thomas J. Sargent† Paolo Surico‡ September 2008 Abstract To detect the quantity theory of money, we follow Lucas (1980) by looking at scatter plots of filtered time series of inflation and money growth rates and interest rates and money growth rates. Like Whiteman (1984), we relate those scatter plots to sums of two-sided distributed lag coefficients constructed from fixed-coefficient and time-varying VARs for U.S. data from 1900-2005. We interpret outcomes in terms of population values of those sums of coefficients implied by two DSGE models. The DSGE models make the sums of weights depend on the monetary policy rule via cross-equation restrictions of a type that Lucas (1972) and Sargent (1971) emphasized in the context of testing the natural unemployment rate hypothesis. When the U.S. data are extended beyond Lucas’s 1955-1975 period, the patterns revealed by scatter plots mutate in ways that we want to attribute to prevailing monetary policy rules. JEL classification: E4, E5, N1 Key words: quantity theory, policy regimes, time-varying VAR ∗We wish to thank Tim Besley, Efrem Castelnuovo, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Haroon Mumtaz, and Francesco Zanetti for useful discussions. Sargent thanks the Bank of England for providing research support when he was a Houblon-Norman Fellow. -
ADVANCED JURISPRUDENCE CONCEPTIONS of SOCIAL JUSTICE: RAWLS, HAYEK, NOZICK, SEN and NUSSBAUM Component-I (A)- Personal
LAW < ADVANCED JURISPRUDENCE CONCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE: RAWLS, HAYEK, NOZICK, SEN AND NUSSBAUM Component-I (A)- Personal Details Principal Investigator Prof. Ranbir Singh VC NLU Delhi Co-Principal Prof. G.S. Bajpai Registrar, NLU Delhi Investigator Paper Coordinator Prof. Sri Krishna Deva VC NLU Odisha Rao Content Writer Dr. Afroz Alam Associate Professor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad Content Reviewer Component-I (B)- Description of Module Description of Module Subject Name Law Paper Name Advanced Jurisprudence Module Name/Title Conceptions of Social Justice: Rawls, Hayek, Nozick, Sen and Nussbaum Module Id Module 3 Pre-requisites A general understanding of social justice is required for a proper understanding of this module. Objectives After going through this module, you should be able to: understand the meaning and nature of social justice; understand the overarching theoretical frameworks of social justice developed by John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, Amartya Sen, and Martha C. Nussbaum articulate your own positions in a clear, coherent and logical manner on the issues of social justice; and examine issues concerning social injustice, and critically analyse them with remedial tools. Key Words Social Justice, Difference Principle, Primary Goods, Spontaneous Order, Capability, MODULE OVERVIEW: For centuries, human society is constantly assessed with the principle of social justice. Yet the demands and principles of social justice are not always clear. What is social justice? Why does social justice matter? Is it concerned with equal opportunity or outcome or distribution of resources or capabilities or removal of poverty or creation of just institutions? As a result, there are great theoretical disagreements on the issues and remedies of the social justice concepts. -
Economic Theory, Freedom and Human Rights
Briefing Paper November 2001 Economic Theory, Freedom and Human Rights: The Work of Amartya Sen This Briefing Paper reviews the ways in which the Nobel Prize expanding the types of variables and influences that are winning economist Professor Amartya Sen has focussed accommodated in theoretical and empirical economics. His international attention on the significance of fundamental human contributions include far-reaching proposals for incorporating freedoms and human rights for development theory and practice. individual entitlements, functionings, opportunities, capabilities, In the past, dominant approaches have often characterised freedoms and rights into the conceptual foundations and development in terms of GDP per capita; food security in terms technical apparatus of economics and social choice. These of food availability; and poverty in terms of income deprivation. proposals reflect a number of central recurring themes Emphasis was placed on economic efficiency – with no explicit including: role being given to fundamental freedoms, individual agency and • the importance of pluralist informational frameworks that human rights. In contrast, Sen’s research has highlighted the central take account of both the well-being aspect of a person idea that, in the final analysis, market outcomes and government (relating to his or her own personal physical and mental actions should be judged in terms of valuable human ends. His well-being) and the agency aspect (relating to the goals work has contributed to important paradigm shifts in economics that a person values, desires and has reasons to pursue; and development – away from approaches that focus exclusively and being sensitive to processes as well as to outcomes – on income, growth and utility, with an increased emphasis on reflecting the intrinsic value of individual choice and individual entitlements, capabilities, freedoms and rights. -
Rohini Pande
ROHINI PANDE 27 Hillhouse Avenue 203.432.3637(w) PO Box 208269 [email protected] New Haven, CT 06520-8269 https://campuspress.yale.edu/rpande EDUCATION 1999 Ph.D., Economics, London School of Economics 1995 M.Sc. in Economics, London School of Economics (Distinction) 1994 MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford University 1992 BA (Hons.) in Economics, St. Stephens College, Delhi University PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2019 – Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics, Yale University 2018 – 2019 Rafik Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University 2006 – 2017 Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University 2005 – 2006 Associate Professor of Economics, Yale University 2003 – 2005 Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University 1999 – 2003 Assistant Professor of Economics, Columbia University VISITING POSITIONS April 2018 Ta-Chung Liu Distinguished Visitor at Becker Friedman Institute, UChicago Spring 2017 Visiting Professor of Economics, University of Pompeu Fabra and Stanford Fall 2010 Visiting Professor of Economics, London School of Economics Spring 2006 Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley Fall 2005 Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, Columbia University 2002 – 2003 Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics, MIT CURRENT PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES 2019 – Director, Economic Growth Center Yale University 2019 – Co-editor, American Economic Review: Insights 2014 – IZA -
Esther Duflo
Policies, Politics: Can Evidence Play a Role in the Fight against Poverty? Esther Duflo The Sixth Annual Richard H. Sabot Lecture A p r i l 2 0 1 1 The Center for Global Development The Richard H. Sabot Lecture Series The Richard H. Sabot Lecture is held annually to honor the life and work of Richard “Dick” Sabot, a respected professor, celebrated development economist, successful internet entrepreneur, and close friend of the Center for Global Development who died suddenly in July 2005. As a founding member of CGD’s board of directors, Dick’s enthusiasm and intellect encouraged our beginnings. His work as a scholar and as a development practitioner helped to shape the Center’s vision of independent research and new ideas in the service of better development policies and practices. Dick held a PhD in economics from Oxford University; he was Professor of Economics at Williams College and taught previously at Yale University, Oxford University, and Columbia University. His contributions to the fields of economics and international development were numerous, both in academia and during ten years at the World Bank. The Sabot Lecture Series hosts each year a scholar-practitioner who has made significant contributions to international development, combining, as did Dick, academic work with leadership in the policy community. We are grateful to the Sabot family and to CGD board member Bruns Grayson for the support to launch the Richard H. Sabot Lecture Series. Previous Lectures 2010 Kenneth Rogoff, “Austerity and the IMF.” 2009 Kemal Derviş, “Precautionary Resources and Long-Term Development Finance.” 2008 Lord Nicholas Stern, “Towards a Global Deal on Climate Change.” 2007 Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, “Corruption: Myths and Reality in a Developing Country Context.” 2006 Lawrence H. -
Tax Policy Reform: the Role of Empirical Evidence
TAX POLICY REFORM: THE ROLE OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE Richard Blundell University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies Abstract To understand the role of evidence in tax policy design, this paper organizes the empirical analysis of reform under five loosely related headings: (i) key margins of adjustment, (ii) measurement of effective tax rates, (iii) the importance of information and complexity, (iv) evidence on the size of responses, and (v) implications from theory for tax design. The context for the discussion is the recently published Mirrlees Review of tax reform. Although the Review focused on all aspects of tax reform, this paper highlights the taxation of earnings. It also comments on earnings taxation in the context of VAT base-broadening reforms and the taxation of capital (JEL: H2, H3). 1. Introduction How should evidence be used in the study of tax design? What is the appropriate balance between theory and empirics? These questions lay at the heart of the Mirrlees Review. Motivated by the aim to develop a broad set of principles for what makes a good tax system, the Review was an attempt to base tax reform on the large body of economic theory and empirical evidence. It was inspired by the Meade Report (1978) with the idea to review tax design from first principles for modern open economies in general and for the UK in particular. The UK over the past thirty years would be the working laboratory. The Mirrlees Review was published in two volumes: Dimensions of Tax Design (Mirrlees et al. 2010) bringing together expert evidence across a wide range of aspects of tax reform, and Tax by Design (Mirrlees et al. -
Interview with Esther Duflo
The tapestry behind Esther Duflo, “Peoples of the World,” was handcrafted by Japanese artist Fumiko Nakayama. It was donated by MIT alumnus Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, a major J-PAL funder. Esther Duflo The problems of poverty in the developing world are extreme, extensive and seemingly immune to solution. Charitable handouts, massive foreign aid, large construction projects and countless other well- intentioned efforts have failed to alleviate poverty for many in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Market- oriented fixes—improved regulatory efficiency and lower trade barriers —also have had limited effect. What does work? MIT economist Esther Duflo has spent the past 20 years intensely pursuing answers to that question. With randomized control experiments—a technique commonly used to test pharmaceuticals— Duflo and her colleagues investigate potential solutions to a wide variety of health, education and agricultural problems, from sexually transmitted diseases to teacher absenteeism to insufficient fertilizer use. Her work often reveals weaknesses in popular fixes and conventional wisdom. Microlending, for example, hasn’t proven the miracle its advocates espouse, but it can be useful in the right setting. Women’s empower- ment, though essential, isn’t a magic bullet. At the same time, she’s discovered truths that hold great promise. A slight financial nudge dramatically increased fertilizer usage in a western Kenya trial. Monitoring teacher attendance, combined with additional pay for showing up, decreased teacher absenteeism by half in -
New Institutional Economics: a State-Of-The-Art Review for Economic Sociologists by Rinat Menyashev, Timur Natkhov, Leonid Polishchuk, and Georgiy Syunyaev 12
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne) (Ed.) Periodical Part economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, Volume 13, Number 1-3 economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Provided in Cooperation with: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne Suggested Citation: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne) (Ed.) (2011) : economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, Volume 13, Number 1-3, economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 13, Iss. 1-3 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/155978 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. -
Michael BEST CV
MICHAEL CARLOS BEST Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) | [email protected]| personal.lse.ac.uk/bestm John A. & Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA 94305, USA | +1 (415) 316 5006 October 2014 EMPLOYMENT 2014-2017 Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University Postdoctoral Fellow EDUCATION 2009-2014 London School of Economics PhD Economics 2011-2012 UC Berkeley Economics, Center for Equitable Growth Visiting PhD Student 2008-2009 London School of Economics MRes Economics (distinction) 2006-2008 University of Oxford MPhil Economics (distinction) 2003-2006 London School of Economics BSc Government & Economics PUBLICATIONS Production vs Revenue Efficiency With Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence From Pakistan (with Anne Brockmeyer, Henrik Kleven, Johannes Spinnewijn and Mazhar Waseem) September 2014. Forth- coming, Journal of Political Economy WORKING PAPERS Salary Misreporting and the Role of Firms in Workers’ Responses to Taxes: Evidence from Pakistan May 2014 Housing Market Responses to Transaction Taxes: Evidence from Notches and Stimulus in the UK (with Henrik Kleven) May 2014 Optimal Income Taxation with Career Effects of Work Effort (with Henrik Kleven) February 2013. Revise & Resubmit at the American Economic Review WORK IN PROGRESS Motivating Bureaucrats: Autonomy vs Performance Pay for Public Procurement in Pakistan (with Ori- ana Bandiera, Adnan Khan and Andrea Prat) The Challenge of Taxing Small Businesses in Mexico (with Miguel Almunia) Haste Makes Waste: -
Esther Duflo Wins Clark Medal
Esther Duflo wins Clark medal http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/duflo-clark-0423.html?tmpl=compon... MIT’s influential poverty researcher heralded as best economist under age 40. Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office April 23, 2010 MIT economist Esther Duflo PhD ‘99, whose influential research has prompted new ways of fighting poverty around the globe, was named winner today of the John Bates Clark medal. Duflo is the second woman to receive the award, which ranks below only the Nobel Prize in prestige within the economics profession and is considered a reliable indicator of future Nobel consideration (about 40 percent of past recipients have won a Nobel). Duflo, a 37-year-old native of France, is the Abdul Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and and Development Economics at MIT, was named the winner of the Development Economics at MIT and a director of 2010 John Bates Clark medal. MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Photo - Photo: L. Barry Hetherington (J-PAL). Her work uses randomized field experiments to identify highly specific programs that can alleviate poverty, ranging from low-cost medical treatments to innovative education programs. Duflo, who officially found out about the medal via a phone call earlier today, says she regards the medal as “one for the team,” meaning the many researchers who have contributed to the renewal of development economics. “This is a great honor,” Duflo told MIT News. “Not only for me, but my colleagues and MIT. Development economics has changed radically over the last 10 years, and this is recognition of the work many people are doing.” The American Economic Association, which gives the Clark medal to the top economist under age 40, said Duflo had distinguished herself through “definitive contributions” in the field of development economics.