Syllabus Winter 2020: PPHA 57300

Economic Development and Policy (MAIDP)

Tuesday / Thursday: 2.00pm-3.20pm

Version updated: Dec 30th 2019

Instructor: Amir Jina

email: [email protected]
office: Keller 2067
office hours: Wednesday 9am-11am

Teaching assistants:
- Elise Egan
- John Schmidt
- Nilanjana Bhattacharya
Office hours: TBA

Course Materials:
(1) Course slides posted weekly on Canvas
(2) Required text:

- “Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty” by

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

This is the only book you are required to buy, and is available in the campus bookstore
(or any bookstore). Fun sidenote: the authors of this book just shared the Nobel Prize in
Economics in 2019 for the work they discuss in this book.

(3) Readings for each week on this syllabus

Course Objective:

The history, current pattern, and causes of the distribution of the wealth of nations
remains one of the most fascinating and fundamental of all questions in economics and
policy. This course will attempt to give an overview of economic growth and
development, focusing on real-world data, by looking at the empirical and theoretical
research that has been used to understand them and subsequently form the basis of
development policies.

The course is divided into three major sections: measuring and modeling growth and
development, human capital, and markets. Throughout the quarter, we’ll explore sets of
“development facts” – the way that the world currently appears to us as policy-makers –
by looking at contemporary data. For each topic, we will attempt to incorporate and
discuss contemporary debates in development thinking.
Class Preparation:

Class preparation will primarily involve reading the required materials before each class.
Each week will require approximately 100 pages of reading. Readings marked with ‘**’
are required readings. Please come to class having read all required readings and as many
of the other readings as you can. Any of these may be the subject of classroom
discussions, and each of you is expected to join in classroom discussions and debates.

In addition, each week you will be required to submit a “data visualization” that you find
during your exploration of contemporary facts about development. More details will be
given on this requirement during class.

Software:

This course will require you to follow lectures and complete assignments using any
statistical software, with a particular emphasis on STATA or R. Stata is available on the
computers in the Harris School Computer Lab and on the student servers. Students
wishing to purchase Stata may do so through the University at a substantial discount.
Stata SE is $235 for a one-year license; $395 for a perpetual license. R was, is, and
always will be free.

Course Grading and Evaluation

Here is a breakdown of the grading for the course

60% Homework assignments
5% Visualization submission
10% Canvas discussions
25% Final

 Assignments
There will be five assignments through the quarter. These will involve questions that ask
you to expand on the modeling we have covered in class, perform some data analysis,
and engage with the readings / papers or other articles. All data analysis is expected to be
replicable, with you submitting code in addition to your answers.

 Data visualization
Each week before 9am on Tuesday each week, you will be required to upload a “data
visualization” through Canvas. This should be an image / figure from an article, report,
newspaper, etc., that visualizes data related to an issue relevant to economic development
and policy, broadly speaking. Images (plus a caption if needed) should be self-contained,
and the source of the data should be clear. They can be interactive visualizations. We will
discuss a selection of these in class.

5% of your final grade will be awarded if you submit on 7 or more of the 9 weeks
available, 2% if you submit 5 or more out of 9. I will choose ~3 of the submissions each
week to discuss in class.
  Canvas discussions
Development policy is a living and breathing thing. In order to stay engaged with the
most pressing issues of policy, we will require you to engage in discussions on canvas
with your classmates, TAs, and instructor. Throughout the quarter, you are expected to
post at least 7 times. Two of these should be posting links to news articles, blogs, reports,
or papers, and the remaining 5 should be responding to others’ posts. Responses do not
need to be lengthy, and should be less than 100 words. The most important guidance on
these posts is to consider the strength of evidence that goes into any policy or issue under
discussion.

 Final
The final will take the form of a group project and presentation. Details TBD.

Approximate assignment dates are as follows:

Distributed Due
Assignment 1
Assignment 2
Assignment 3
Assignment 4
Assignment 5
Final

Re-Grades

Any item for which there is a re-grade request must be done within 7 days after we return
the assignment or exam to you. The request for re-grade MUST be done in writing and
attached to the assignment. In such cases, we will re-grade the whole assignment– not
just the question you identified. As a result, your grade may be lower.

Communication

Communication from instructors to students will happen through posting of materials on

Canvas and class email sent through Canvas. Emailing me directly is likely to be the least
efficient way to communicate about the class, with office hours or messages on Canvas
generally preferable. Questions regarding scheduling, class materials, or assignments
should be directed to your TA.

Stata and R Support Bar:

The Harris School has dedicated additional resources for teaching programming in R and
Stata through the Stata and R support bars.

Tutoring
If you would like to employ a tutor for additional instruction, please contact your
academic advisor or the Assistant Director for Student Affairs, Jen Lombardo
([email protected]).

Detailed syllabus and readings

NOTE: Required readings are indicated with a ‘**’ before their entry. Other readings are
optional, and will either be referred to in class or provide extra background / detail on a
topic.

Part I: Measuring and modeling economic development (weeks 1-4)

1) Where we are and how we got here: a picture of development around the world
(plus class introduction)
Topics: Development around the world; Development Facts; GDP PPP, etc;
Convergence and Divergence; Industrial revolution and the great divergence; History of
development; Development policy thought through time; Solow-Swan model;

a. **Maddison, Angus. The world economy volume 1: A millennial perspective

volume 2: Historical statistics. Academic Foundation, 2007. Introduction &
Chapter 1
b. **Pritchett, Lant. "Divergence, Big Time." The Journal of Economic
Perspectives 11, no. 3 (1997): 3-17.
i. Blog:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/convergence
-big-time.html
c. Henderson, J. Vernon, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil. "Measuring
economic growth from outer space." American economic review 102, no. 2
(2012): 994-1028.

2) Economic development, factor allocation, and structural change

Topics: Alternatives to GDP: HDI, SDGs, etc; Endogenous growth; AK Model; Growth
accounting; Factor allocation; TFP; Structural change; Lewis two-sector model;
Comparative advantage; Trade; Internal and international migration;

a. **Romer, Paul, “Economic Growth” in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

Available at: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/EconomicGrowth.html
b. **Rodrik, Dani. "Growth strategies." Handbook of economic growth 1 (2005):
967-1014. Sections 1-4
d. **Stiglitz, Joseph, “The Post-Washington Consensus Consensus”, in Serra,
Narcís, and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 2008. The Washington Consensus reconsidered:
towards a new global governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
e. Jones, Charles I., and Paul M. Romer. "The new Kaldor facts: ideas, institutions,
population, and human capital." American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics 2, no. 1 (2010): 224-45.
f. Jones, Charles I. "The facts of economic growth." In Handbook of
macroeconomics, vol. 2, pp. 3-69. Elsevier, 2016.
 g. Murphy, Kevin M., Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny. "Industrialization
and the big push." Journal of political economy 97, no. 5 (1989): 1003-1026.
h. Casson, Mark, and John S. Lee. "The origin and development of markets: A
business history perspective." Business History Review 85, no. 1 (2011): 9-37.

3) Measuring and modeling poverty

Topics: LDCs; Industrial policy; Poverty lines and headcounts; Inequality and
distribution of wealth; Gini index; Poverty trap / multiple equilibria models; Psychology
of poverty; Ethics, equity, sustainability; International aid;

a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 1

b) **Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. "The economic lives of the
poor." Journal of economic perspectives 21, no. 1 (2007): 141-168.
c) **Robinson, James A. "Industrial Policy and Development: A Political Economy
Perspective." (2009).
d) **Kraay, Aart, and David McKenzie. "Do poverty traps exist? Assessing the
evidence." Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3 (2014): 127-48.
e) **Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert
Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert, and Christopher
Udry. "A multifaceted program causes lasting progress for the very poor:
Evidence from six countries." Science 348, no. 6236 (2015): 1260799.
f) **Pritchett, Lant. "Alleviating Global Poverty: Labor Mobility, Direct
Assistance, and Economic Growth." (2018).
g) ** Haushofer, Johannes, and Ernst Fehr. "On the psychology of
poverty." Science 344, no. 6186 (2014): 862-867.
h) Ray, Debraj “Development Economics” in Palgrave Dictionary of Economics:
http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/debraj/Papers/RayPalgrave.pdf
i) Rodrik, Dani. "Industrial policy for the twenty-first century." (2004).
https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/publications/industrial-policy-twenty-first-
century
j) Deaton, Angus. "Measuring poverty in a growing world (or measuring growth in
a poor world)." Review of Economics and statistics 87, no. 1 (2005): 1-19.
k) Marx, Benjamin, Thomas Stoker, and Tavneet Suri. "The economics of slums in
the developing world." Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 4 (2013): 187-
210.
l) Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. "Growth theory through the lens of
development economics." Handbook of economic growth 1 (2005): 473-552.

Part II: Human Capital (weeks 5-7)

4) Demographics and nutrition
Topics: Demographic transition; Fertility; Family planning; Population momentum;
Engel’s law; Nutrition interventions; Macro- and micro-nutrients; Nutrition traps;
Household economies

a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 2

 b) **[introduction (p1-5) only] Chatterjee, Shoumitro, and Tom Vogl. "Escaping
Malthus: Economic Growth and Fertility Change in the Developing
World." American Economic Review 108, no. 6 (2018): 1440-67.
c) **[introduction (p1-6) only] Schofield, Heather. "The economic costs of low
caloric intake: Evidence from india." Unpublished Manuscript (2014).
d) **Black, Robert E., Cesar G. Victora, Susan P. Walker, Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, Parul
Christian, Mercedes De Onis, Majid Ezzati et al. "Maternal and child
undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries." The
Lancet 382, no. 9890 (2013): 427-451.
e) Subramanian, Shankar, and Angus Deaton. "The demand for food and
calories." Journal of political economy 104, no. 1 (1996): 133-162.
f) Galor, Oded, and David N. Weil. "Population, technology, and growth: From
Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond." American
economic review 90, no. 4 (2000): 806-828.
g) Kremer, Michael. "Population growth and technological change: One million BC
to 1990." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, no. 3 (1993): 681-716.
h) Bhutta, Zulfiqar A., Jai K. Das, Arjumand Rizvi, Michelle F. Gaffey, Neff
Walker, Susan Horton, Patrick Webb et al. "Evidence-based interventions for
improvement of maternal and child nutrition: what can be done and at what
cost?." The lancet 382, no. 9890 (2013): 452-477.

5) Health
Topics: RCT methodology; Program evaluation; Public health; Health externalities;
Vaccination; SIR models; Disease and development; HIV/Aids;

a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 3

b) **Dupas, Pascaline, and Edward Miguel. "Impacts and determinants of health
levels in low-income countries." In Handbook of economic field experiments, vol.
2, pp. 3-93. North-Holland, 2017.
c) Miguel, Edward, and Michael Kremer. "Worms: identifying impacts on
education and health in the presence of treatment
externalities." Econometrica 72, no. 1 (2004): 159-217.
d) Dupas, Pascaline. "Short‐run subsidies and long‐run adoption of new health
products: Evidence from a field experiment." Econometrica 82, no. 1 (2014):
197-228.

6) Education
Topics: Merit goods; Education; Learning crisis; Universal enrollment; Human capital
accumulation; Returns to education and schooling

a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 4

b) ** World Bank. "World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize
Education’s Promise." (2018). Chps 1-3, overview strongly encouraged
 c) **Jayachandran, Seema. "The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing
Countries." Annu. Rev. Econ 7 (2015): 63-88.
d) Baird, Sarah, Craig McIntosh, and Berk Özler. "Cash or condition? Evidence
from a cash transfer experiment." The Quarterly journal of economics 126, no. 4
(2011): 1709-1753.
e) Duflo, Esther. "Schooling and labor market consequences of school construction
in Indonesia: Evidence from an unusual policy experiment." American economic
review 91, no. 4 (2001): 795-813.

Part III: Markets and Market Failures (week 8-10)

7) Agricultural land and labour markets
Topics: Expected utility and risk aversion; Market failures; Adverse Selection; Moral
Hazard; Public goods
a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 6 and 7
b) ** Stiglitz, Joseph E. "Markets, market failures, and development." The
American Economic Review 79, no. 2 (1989): 197-203.
c) **Gollin, Douglas, David Lagakos, and Michael E. Waugh. "Agricultural
productivity differences across countries." American Economic Review 104, no. 5
(2014): 165-70.
d) Hicks, Joan Hamory, Marieke Kleemans, Nicholas Y. Li, and Edward
Miguel. Reevaluating Agricultural Productivity Gaps with Longitudinal
Microdata. No. w23253. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017.
e) Bryan, Gharad, Shyamal Chowdhury, and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak.
"Underinvestment in a profitable technology: The case of seasonal migration in
Bangladesh." Econometrica 82, no. 5 (2014): 1671-1748.
f) Alesina, Alberto, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn. "On the origins of gender
roles: Women and the plough." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 128, no. 2
(2013): 469-530.

8) Credit and savings, risk and insurance

Topics: Adverse selection; Moral Hazard; Consumption smoothing; Cash transfers;
Universal basic income; Social safety nets; Microfinance
a) **Banerjee and Duflo, Chapter 7
b) **Blog about GiveDirectly UBI experiment: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2017/3/6/14007230/kenya-basic-income-givedirectly-experiment-village
c) **Blog about CCTs on Development Impact:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/dear-governments-want-help-poor-
and-transform-your-economy-hold-recalculating
d) **Kochar, Anjini. "Smoothing consumption by smoothing income: hours-of-
work responses to idiosyncratic agricultural shocks in rural India." Review of
Economics and Statistics 81, no. 1 (1999): 50-61.
e) **Burgess, Robin, and Rohini Pande. "Do rural banks matter? Evidence from the
Indian social banking experiment." American Economic Review 95, no. 3 (2005):
780-795.
 f) **Jayachandran, Seema. "Selling labor low: Wage responses to productivity
shocks in developing countries." Journal of political Economy 114, no. 3 (2006):
538-575.
g) Banerjee, Abhijit, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman. "Six randomized
evaluations of microcredit: Introduction and further steps." American Economic
Journal: Applied Economics 7, no. 1 (2015): 1-21.
h) Paxson, Christina H. "Using weather variability to estimate the response of
savings to transitory income in Thailand." The American Economic
Review (1992): 15-33.
i) Blattman, Christopher, Nathan Fiala, and Sebastian Martinez. The Long Term
Impacts of Grants on Poverty: 9-year Evidence From Uganda's Youth
Opportunities Program. No. w24999. National Bureau of Economic Research,
2018.

9) Natural resources, energy, and the environment

Topics: Public goods again; Energy and development; Environment and economic
growth; Externalities; Congestion; Tragedy of the commons
a) **Dietz, Thomas, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern. "The struggle to govern the
commons." science 302, no. 5652 (2003): 1907-1912.
b) **Hsiang, Solomon M., and Amir S. Jina. The causal effect of environmental
catastrophe on long-run economic growth: Evidence from 6,700 cyclones. No.
w20352. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014.
c) **Maccini, Sharon, and Dean Yang. "Under the weather: Health, schooling, and
economic consequences of early-life rainfall." American Economic Review 99,
no. 3 (2009): 1006-26.
d) Duflo, Esther, Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, and Nicholas Ryan. "Truth-
telling by third-party auditors and the response of polluting firms: Experimental
evidence from India." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 128, no. 4 (2013):
1499-1545.

Ethical Academic Conduct

All University of Chicago students are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic
integrity and honesty. Among other things, this means that students shall not represent another’s
work as their own, use un-allowed materials during exams, or otherwise gain unfair academic
advantage. All students suspected of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Harris Dean of
Students for investigation and adjudication. The disciplinary process can result in sanctions up to
and including suspension or expulsion from the University. In addition to disciplinary sanctions, a
student will receive a grade of 0 on the assignment or exam in question (subject to the discretion
of the instructor). The Harris policy and procedures related to academic integrity can be found at
https://harris.uchicago.edu/gateways/current-students/policies. The University of Chicago Policy
on Academic Honesty & Plagiarism can be found at
https://studentmanual.uchicago.edu/academic-policies/academic-honesty-plagiarism/
 Harris Integrity Policy for Problem Sets Involving Code
Note: This policy was developed by a committee of Harris faculty and is meant as a guideline.
Individual instructors may make modifications to this policy in the context of his or her own
class. Please see the course syllabus for rules relating to a particular course.

1. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. If you commit plagiarism, you may receive an F
and be referred to the Area Disciplinary Committee.
2. All work must be your own. Do NOT
 show other students your code
 ask for another student's code
 use online solutions to textbook questions
 copy large portions of code from online repositories (e.g. replication code)
3. Every submission begins with "this submission is my work alone and complies with the 57300
integrity policy. Add your initials to indicate your agreement: **___**"
4. So how can I collaborate?
a. In-person collaboration
I. clarify ambiguities in problem set questions
II. discuss conceptual aspects of problem sets (e.g. at the whiteboard)
III. show output on screen (e.g. a graph or table)
IV. show helpful documentation files
b. Electronic collaboration
I. Piazza message board
- ask questions
- share error messages (but not code)
II. Code from an online forum or resource (other than documentation files)
- cite all code you use, even a one-line snippet
5. How do these rules change for problem sets working in groups?
a. You and your group members will submit a single problem set.
b. If you work collaboratively with other students, but turn in your own problem set
 You can talk to your group members as needed and look at other members work to
facilitate that discussion
 Your problem set should be solely your authorship (written up by yourself, in your own
language, including your own code.)
 Your code should have a comment at the top listing the members of your group.
 any part of your code that was substantially altered because of your group discussion
should cite others' contributions with names and descriptions in a comment at the place
where it is applicable.
6. Unsure about some aspect of this policy? Please ask your instructor.
Please see example
source: This policy draws heavily on the CS 12100 academic honesty policy and CMSCC 23300
policy

Full Harris Academic Integrity Procedures

from online student Handbook accessible at https://harris.uchicago.edu/gateways/current-
students/policies
Harris Procedures for Allegations of Plagiarism, Cheating, and Academic Dishonesty

First Violation
If a student is accused by an instructor or teaching assistant of plagiarism, cheating, or any other
form of academic dishonesty, the student will be summoned to meet with the Dean of Students
and the instructor. In the meeting, the student and instructor both present information about the
situation. If it is determined by the instructor and the Dean of Students that the student has, in
fact, plagiarized or cheated, the following sanctions will be imposed for the first violation:
 The student will generally receive a grade of 0 on the assignment or exam in question.
Please note that grading decisions are fully at the discretion of the instructor, who may
decide to impose harsher grade penalties.
 The student may be asked to re-do the assignment or retake the exam (without credit) to
ensure that the student has learned how to properly cite sources or demonstrate that he or
she has command of material covered.
 A formal letter of finding is sent to the student stating that the student has been found in
violation of the code of academic honesty and what the sanctions were. The letter, along
with any evidence presented, is archived in Harris Student Affairs records until the
student graduates if the student has no other violations.
 Students found in violation of the academic honesty policy are not permitted to withdraw
from the course to avoid grade penalties from the instructor.
 In cases where plagiarism or academic dishonesty is egregious, the case may be referred
to the Area Disciplinary Committee even on a first offense. The Dean makes all decisions
about which cases will go before the Area Disciplinary Committee.

Second Violation
If a student who has already been found in violation academic dishonesty is again accused of
academic dishonesty, the case will be sent to the Harris Area Disciplinary Committee. Details
about the Area Disciplinary Committee procedures can be found in the University Student
Manual. Information about the first violation, including the formal letter of finding any evidence,
will be presented to the Area Disciplinary Committee, along with evidence of the current
allegation. If the student is found in violation of academic honesty a second time, the Area
Disciplinary Committee can assign sanctions including transcript notes, disciplinary probation,
suspension or expulsion from the University.

Academic Dishonesty Appeals

If a student has been found in violation of academic honesty and does not believe that either the
finding or the sanction is fair or correct, the student has the right to appeal the finding by
requesting a hearing from the Area Disciplinary Committee. More information about the Area
Disciplinary Committee is available here.

University of Chicago Policy on Academic Honesty & Plagiarism

https://studentmanual.uchicago.edu/academic-policies/academic-honesty-plagiarism/