The course provides a big picture view of the Economic Development discipline through the current debate on the future of Economic Development. It answers the central questions: 1) why are some countries so much poorer than others?, 2) what are the main barriers to the process of economic development? and 3) why do those barriers exist and persist? This course provides an overview of how the discipline of Economic Development approaches these questions and to review its recent findings. It is required for students pursuing the specialization in Economic Development.
Pre-requisites: Although most of the course will be presented in a non-technical fashion, there will be some formal economic models and review academic empirical papers. Students should be comfortable with basic economic concepts and should have completed or be concurrently enrolled in an intermediate level microeconomics course and econometrics or statistics. Students that do not fulfill this requirement should discuss their background with the professor before enrolling in the course.