Two out of five people worldwide

Two out of five people worldwide lack access to a toilet. One out of six does not have access to safe drinking water. Inadequate access to water and sanitation contributes to two million child deaths a year.

Welcome to

ECONOMICS 280: Development Economics

Fall 2010: TTh 10:10-11:35 and 11:50-1:15
Instructor: Jim Casey
Contact Info: Holekamp 214, Ext. 8102, Email: Caseyj
Office Hours: : mw 10:10-11:00 and TTh 8:30-9:30
Prerequisite: Economics 101

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/20/magazine/kristof-audioss/index.html

Course Overview:

Economic Development has been defined by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen as "the process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy" (see Development as Freedom, p. 3). Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq has written that "the objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives" (see Human Development Reports). Development Economics is the branch of economics that studies developing countries. While there is no generally accepted definition of "developing countries," the expression refers to relatively poor countries-or countries where standards of living are relatively low on average. This class serves as an introduction to the field of Development Economics. Development Economics is a very broad field, covering everything from Agriculture to Trade with poverty, inequality, gender, finance, environment, labor, education, health, and nutrition in between. Knowledge of Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 101) is required. Knowledge of basic regression analysis and calculus will be helpful.

The structure for this class will remain the same as the topics change. A typical week will involve reading 1 or 2 chapters from the text in preparation for Tuesday’s class. Class time on Tuesday will be reserved for answering any questions you may have pertaining to the day’s assigned reading. If there are no questions, then I will assume you understand everything from the chapter and we will have a quiz. If we have lots of discussion and questions on Tuesday, we will start Thursday's class with a short quiz. The quiz will cover material from Tuesday’s assigned reading(s). We will finish each Thursday with a discussion of the assigned reading for that day, which will usually be an article related to the chapter material. In order to prepare for Thursday's discussion you should comment on the class blog before class.

The Class Blog - http://generaldevelopment.blogspot.com/

Readings:

(1) Todaro and Smith (T&S) Economic Development. 9th ed.

(2) Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Random House.

(3) Selected Online Reading Assignments

Requirements

15% of your grade will be based on the project - TBA

60% of your grade will be based on two exams.

10% on blogging

15% of your grade will be based on weekly quizzes.

Course Schedule:

280calendar.htm