Spring 2021 - 60845 - PA 393L - Advanced Policy Economics

This course will give students an overview of critical issues in the process of economic development and the lives of the world’s poor.  We will rely on analytical frameworks grounded in economic theory and rigorous empirical evidence to explore the process of factor accumulation in developing countries. We will briefly cover models of growth and structural transformation, but the focus of the course will be on the microeconomic foundations of economic development. The course will explore issues around human capital accumulation (health and education), financial behaviors and the adoption of technologies. We will also examine how failures in land, credit and labor markets can affect individual and firm investments. Throughout the course, we will discuss how policy might address these market failures. This course requires the ability to interpret statistics and a basic understanding of economic principles.