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2390 Syllabus Fall 2014 Sep 5 2014 Development Economics I Fall 2014 Economics 2390 Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:30pm Class Location: Emerson 106 Version: September 5, 2014 Michael Kremer M-20, Littauer Center Department of Economics [email protected] Office Hours: Wednesdays 3:00-4:00 Email Jeanne Winner [email protected] for appointment Shawn Cole 271 Baker Library, HBS [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment (please email Brian O’Connor: [email protected]) Nathan Nunn M-25, Littauer Center Department of Economics [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment (please email Prof. Nunn) Teaching Assistant: Sara Lowes [email protected] Office hours: TBD Prerequisites: This class contributes to the fulfillment of requirements for the Development field for Economics Ph.D. students. Non-Ph.D. students are not permitted to enroll in the course. Ph.D. students are required to have taken or be concurrently taking PhD level microeconomics and econometrics. The class will be team taught by Michael Kremer, Shawn Cole, and Nathan Nunn. There will be a guest lecture by Gautam Rao. 1 Broad Overview: Part I (taught by Michael Kremer) will cover microeconomic topics including human capital, household economics, technology adoption and reputation. This part will also cover common empirical strategies in development research and methods for causal inference. Part II (taught by Shawn Cole) is intended to bring students to the forefront of research on finance in emerging markets. Topics will include the relationship between financial development and economic growth, consumer finance; small and medium enterprise finance; debt and equity markets; the role of management and corporate governance; and the political economy of finance. Part III of the course (taught by Nathan Nunn) will cover a broad range of topics including the role of population, culture, ethnicity, leaders, and corruption in economic development. The last three lectures will examine the efficacy of industrial policy and foreign aid in helping to spur economic growth. Requirements: Final Exam: There is a final exam for the course that will take place in class on December 3, 2014. The exam is 90 minutes long and will cover material from the full semester. All material from the readings or covered in class may be on the exam. Assignments Part I: Students will be assigned two problem sets due September 22 and October 6. Part II: Students will be assigned one problem set, which includes an empirical replication, and be asked to write a referee report about one paper from a set of four. The problem set will be due on October 22, and the referee report will be due on October 29. Part III: Prior to the beginning of each class (i.e., every Monday and Wednesday), students are required to write a short summary of one of the required readings for that day and to email the summary to Nathan Nunn and Sara Lowes: [email protected] and [email protected]. The email summaries are due at least 2 hours before the start of class. The summary should cover the following: (i) Why is the paper important (or why not)? (ii) An overview of the core contributions of the paper. (iii) What you liked or did not like about the paper. (iv) How the paper is connected to the other readings that day. Students are also required to complete one GIS assignment, which will facilitate an introduction to ArcMap software and help students learns its most useful functions and capabilities. The data needed for the assignment will be provided. The assignment will be due on November 24th. Grading: 2 In assessing grades, the following breakdown will be used: Class Participation 20%, Assignments 40 %, Final Exam 40%. Schedule: DATE TOPIC ASSIGNMENT Michael Kremer September 3 Human Capital + Experimental Methods September 8 Human Capital + Non Experimental Methods September 10 Human Capital + Non Experimental Methods September 15 Household Economics September 17 Technology September 22 Technology Problem set due September 24 Gautam Rao guest lecture September 29 Reputation October 1 Returns to Capital and Misallocation October 6 Returns to Capital and Misallocation Problem set due Shawn Cole October 8 Financial Development and Growth October 15 Household Finance/Insurance October 17 Small Business Finance October 22 Firms I: Debt Problem set due October 27 Firms II: Equity, Management, and Boards October 29 Political Economy and Finance Referee report due Nathan Nunn November 3 Macro Theories of Economic Development November 5 Overpopulation and Scale Effects November 10 Corruption and Leaders November 12 Ethnicity November 17 Culture November 19 Trade and Industrial Policy November 24 External Influence and International Relations GIS assignment due December 1 Foreign Aid December 3 Final Exam 3 Other Useful Information: Development Sequence: Ec 2390 is one of three development courses in the economics development sequence. The other two courses in the sequence are: (i) Ec 2325, Comparative Historical Economic Development, taught by James Robinson and Nathan Nunn in fall 2014, and (ii) Ec 2392, The Political Economy of Economic Development, taught by Melissa Dell in spring 2015. Development Seminar: It meets on Tuesdays, 2:30-4:00pm in Harvard Hall, Room TBD. You can subscribe at: http://harvard.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=4d09959caaa2dba35babbe710&id=b7fc7b5d2a Harvard Development Tea: It meets on Mondays from 3:00-4:00pm in Littauer 219. To sign up for the mailing list, please email Gia Petrakis. The webpage is located here: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k97763 Harvard Development Lunch: Meets on Thursdays from 12:00-1:00pm on the 4th floor of Rubenstein Building at Harvard Kennedy School, in the Perkins Room. To sign up for the mailing list, please email Sara Lowes. 4 I. Michael Kremer General References Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. Public Affairs, 2012. Deaton, Angus. The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. World Bank Publications, 1997. Glennerster, Rachel. Running Randomized Evaluations: A Practical Guide. Princeton University Press, 2013. Ray, Debraj. Development Economics. Princeton University Press, 1998. Human Capital + Experimental Methods * Miguel, Edward and Michael Kremer (2004). “Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities", Econometrica, 72 (1), pp. 159-217. * Baird, Sarah, Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel (2011). “Worms at Work: Long- run Impacts of Child Health Gains,” mimeo. Acemoglu, D. and S. Johnson (2007), “Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 115, no. 6, pp.925-985. Almond, Douglas (2006), “Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-term Effects of In Utero Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population,” Journal of Political Economy, 114(4), pp. 672-712. Basinga, Paulin, Paul Gertler, Agnes Binagwaho, Agnes Soucat, Jennifer Sturdy and Christel Vermeersch (2010). “Paying Primary Health Care Centers for Performance in Rwanda,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5190. Björkman, Martina and Jakob Svensson (2009). “Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment of Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(2), pp. 735-769. Bleakley, Hoyt (2010). “Malaria Eradication in The Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood exposure”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(2), pp. 1-45. Bleakley, Hoyt (2007). “Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(1), pp. 73-117. 5 Bloom, Erik, Elizabeth King, Indu Bhushan, Michael Kremer, David Clingingsmith, Benjamin Loevinsohn, Rathavuth Hong, J. Brad Schwartz (2006). “Contracting for Health: Evidence from Cambodia,” working paper, Brookings Institution. Bobonis, Gustavo, Edward Miguel and Charu Puri Sharma (2006). “Anemia and School Participation,” Journal of Human Resources, 41(4), pp. 692-721. Case, Anne, Darren Lubotsky, and Christina Paxson (2002), “Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient,” American Economic Review, 92 (5), pp. 1308–34. Das, Jishnu and Jeffrey Hammer (2007). “Money for Nothing: The Dire Straits of Medical Practice in Delhi, India,” Journal of Development Economics, 83(1), pp. 1-36. Duflo Esther, Pascaline Dupas and Michael Kremer (2011). “Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya,” American Economic Review, 101(5), pp. 1739-1774. Field, Erica, Omar Robles and Maximo Torero (2009). “Iodine Deficiency and Schooling Attainment in Tanzania,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(4),pp. 140-169. Galiani, Sebastián, Paul Gertler and Ernesto Schargrodsky (2005). “Water for Life: The Impact of the Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality,” Journal of Political Economy, 113(1), pp. 83-120. Gallup, J. L. and J. D. Sachs (2001), “The Economic Burden of Malaria,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 64 (1, Supplement), 85-96. Kremer, Michael (2003). “Randomized Evaluations of Educational Programs in Developing Countries: Some Lessons," American Economic Review 93(2), pp. 102-106. Kremer, Michael and Alaka Holla (2009). “Improving Education in the Developing World: What Have We Learned From Randomized Evaluations?” in Arrow, K. and T. Bresnahan (eds.), Annual Review of Economics, Volume One, pp. 513-542.
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