Econ Phd Syllabus: Readings in No Particular Order
ECON 982L: Topics in Economic Development & Transition
Spring 2011
Friday 9-11 AM, Room R03/4
Professor Chris Woodruff, 1.119
Office Hours: Wednesday 12:00-1:00, Friday 11:00-12:00, or by appointment
“The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: Once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.” (Robert Lucas, “On the Mechanics of Economic Development”)
This course offers an introduction to recent research macroeconomic issues of economic development. By macroeconomics, we mean broad ideas rather than monetary policy or growth. As is always the case, there are so many topics, and so little time. The syllabus is designed to include a wide variety of research methods, often applied to the same question.
Grades will be determined by performance on the following assignments (weight in grade in parentheses):
1) Research paper. (20%) Focusing on one topic which we cover in the course, summarize (succinctly!) the state of knowledge on that topic, and then critique the research on the topic. Which research—theoretical or empirical—is most convincing? What are the most important questions left unanswered, or answered only unconvincingly?
2) Final exam. (80%)
READINGS:
Introduction
Week 1 (21 January)
The Big Picture
*Easterly, William, 2009, “Can the West Save Africa?,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol 47(2), pp. 373-448 [Link to NBER version] Readpp. 1-46 of NBER version, pp. 373-402 of the JEL version
Burnside, Craig and David Dollar, 2000, “Aid, Policies, and Growth.” American Economic Review Vol. 90(4), pp. 847–68. [Link]
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo, 200, “The Economic Lives of the Poor,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vo. 21(1), pp. 141-167. [Link]
*Caselli, Francesco (2005), “Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences,” Handbook of Economic Growth[Link]
*Mankiw, N Gregory, David Romer and David N. Weil, 1992, “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, pp. 407-37. [Link]Read pp. 407-421.
Week 2 (28 January)
Institutions and History
Botticini and Ekstein, “From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History,” Journal of the European Economic Association, 5(5) pp. 885-926, September 2007. [Link]
*Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2001), "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation", American Economic Review, 91, 1369-1401 [Link]
*Engerman and Sokoloff, 2000, “History Lessons: Institutions, Factor Endowments and Paths of Development in the New World, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), pp. 217-232 [Link]
Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson, 2005, “Unbundling Institutions,” Journal of Political Economy, 113(5), pp. 949-995. [Link]
Albouy, David, 2008, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data”, NBER Working paper 14130. [Link]
Week 3 ( 4 February)
Property rights, Contract Enforcement, Corruption
*Avner Greif. 1994. “CulturalBeliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and TheoreticalReflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies.” Journal of Political Economy, 102 (October1994): 912–50.[Link]
*Ben Olken, “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia,” Journal of Political Economy 115 (2), pp. 200-249, April 2007.[Link]
Di Tella, Rafael, Sebastián Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2007, “The Formation of Beliefs: Evidence from the Allocation of Land Titles to Squatters,”Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 122 (1), pp. 209-241.[Link]
*Johnson, Simon, John McMillan and Christopher Woodruff. "Property Rights and Finance," American Economic Review, December 2002. [Link]
Timothy Besley. 1995. “Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence.” Journal of Political Economy, 103(5), pp 903-957. [Link]
Goldstein, Marcus and Christopher Udry, 2008, “The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana,” Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming. [Link]
Households and household enterprises
Week 4 (11 February)
Informality
De Soto, Hernando, 1989, The Other Path, pp. 231-258.
Djankov, Simeon, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer, 2002, “The Regulation of Entry,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(1), pp. 1-37. [Link]
*Kaplan, David, Eduardo Piedra, and Enrique Seira, 2007, “Entry Regulation and Business Start-ups: Evidence from Mexico,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4322. [Link]
Bruhn, Miraim, 2008, “License to Sell: The Effect of Business Registration Reform of Entrepreneurial Activity in Mexico,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4538. [Link].
Bertrand, Marianne and Francis Kramarz, 2002, “Does Entry regulation Hinder Job Creation? Evidence from the French Retail Industry,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4), pp 1369-1413. [Link]
Rauch, Jim, 1991, “Modeling the Informal Sector Formally”Journal of Development Economics, 35(1), pp. 33-47. [Link]
Farrell, Diana, 2004, “The Hidden Dangers of the Informal Economy, Mckinsey Quarterly, 2004, Issue Number 3. [Link]
Lagakos, David, 2009, “Superstores or Mom and Pops? Technology Adoptionand Productivity Differences in Retail Trade,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 428 [Link]
*De Mel, Suresh, David McKenzie and Christopher Woodruff, 2009, “What is the Cost of Formality? Experimentally Estimating the Demand for Formalization,” mimeo Warwick [Link]
Weeks 5 and 6 (18 and 25 February)
Enterprises and Inequality
*Ghatak, Maitreesh and Neville Nien-Huei Jiang (2002), "A Simple Model of Inequality, Occupational Choice and Development," Journal of Development Economics, 69(1), pp. 205-226. [Link]
Abhijit Banerjee and Andrew Newman. 1993. “Occupational Choice and the Process of Development,” Journal of Political Economy 101(1), pp. 274-298. [Link]
Banerjee,Abhijit and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2008,“Limited Attention and Income Distribution”, mimeo MIT [Link]
Microfinance
*Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster and Cynthia Kinnan (2009) The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation, Mimeo MIT. [Link]
Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman, 2009, “Expanding Microenterprise Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts in Manila,” Mimeo Yale [Link]
De Mel, Suresh, David McKenzie and Christopher Woodruff, 2008, “Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(4), pp. 1329-1372. [Link]
Banerjee and Duflo, 2008, “Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program,” MIT mimeo [Link]
Microsavings and commitment
*Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin, 2006. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines,"The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(2), pages 635-672, May.
*Dupas, Pascaline and Jonathan Robinson, 2010, “Savings Constraints and Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya,” mimeo UCLA
Brune, Lasse, Xavier Gine, Jessica Goldberg, and Dean Yang, “Commitments to Save: A Field Experiment in Rural Malawi,” mimeo, University of Michigan
*Morduch, Jonathan (2010) "Borrowing to Save," Journal of Globalization and Development:Vol. 1 : Iss. 2, Article 8.
*Baland, Jean-Marie, Catherine Guirkinger and Charlotte Mali, 2007 “Pretending to be poor: borrowing to escape forcedsolidarity in credit cooperatives in Cameroon,” working paper, University of Namur.
Week 7 (4 March)
Bargaining and power
Duflo and Udry, Duflo, Esther and Udry, Christopher. (2004). Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Cote d’Ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices. NBERWorking Papers10498.
de Mel, Suresh and McKenzie, David and Woodruff, Christopher. (2009). Are Women MoreCredit Constrained? Experimental Evidence on Gender and Microenterprise Returns. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1 (3), 1-32.
Fafchamps, Marcel, David McKenzie, Simon Quinn, and Christopher Woodruff, “When is capital enough to get female microenterprises growing? Evidence from a randomized experiment in Ghana”, mimeo, WarwickUniversity
*Schaner, Simone, "Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity, Commitment, and Strategic Savings: Theory and Evidence from Kenya," mimeo, MIT [Link]
Banerjee, Abhijit, Dilip Mookherjee, Kaivan Munshi and Debraj Ray (2001). “Inequality, control rights, and rent seeking: Sugar cooperatives in Maharashtra,” Journal of Political Economy, 109(1), pp. 138-190. [Link]
Week 8 (11 March)
Finance and Allocation
Rajan, R. and Luigi Zingales, 1998, "Financial Dependence and Growth," American EconomicReview, 88 (3), 559-586. [Link]
Abhijit Banerjee and Kaivan Munshi, 2004, “How Efficiently is Capital Allocated? Evidence from the Knitted Garment Industry in Tirupur.” Review of Economic Studies, 71(1), pp. 19-42. [Link]
*Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Peter Klenow, 2007, “Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India,” NBER Working Paper 13290. [Link]
*Bloom, Nick, Benn Eifert, Aprajit Mahajan,David McKenzie and John Roberts, 2009, “Management Matters: Evidence from India”, working paper, Stanford University [Link]
*Foster, Andrew and Mark Rosenzweig, 2010, “Is There Surplus Labor in Rural India?” mimeo, Yale [Link]
Khwaja, Asim and Atif Mian, 2005. “Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent provision in an Emerging Financial Market,”Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120(4), pp. 1371-1411.[Link]
Bloom, Nicholas and John Van Reenen, 2007, “Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries,”Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2007. [Link]
Bloom, Nick, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen, “The Organization of Firms Across Countries,” NBER Working Paper 15129 [Link]
Week 9 (18 March)
Market Forces
Murphy, Kevin, Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny (1989), "Industrialization and the Big Push", Journal of Political Economy[Link]
Michael Kremer. 1993. “The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development.” Quarterly Journal of Economics v. 108 no. 3, pp. 551-75. [Link]
Rosenstein-Rodan, Paul, 1943, “Problems of Industrialization of Eastern and South- Eastern Europe”, Economic Journal v 53, No. 210/211, p 202-11.
*Verhoogan, Eric, 2008, “Trade, Quality Upgrading, and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol 123(2), pp. 489-530. [Link]
*Andrabi, Tahir, Jishnu Das and Asim Khwaja, 2009, “Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test-scores on Educational Markets,” working paper, Kennedy School of Government [Link]
Donaldson, David, “Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure” [Link]