Course: ECON 581-073 (W, 7:30-10:20, Econ/Finance
Grant Seminar Room)
Term: Fall
2004
Instructor: Professor
Garett Jones
Office hours: Alumni Hall 3132, MW 4-6, M 7:15-8, and
gladly by appt.
Phone: (618) 650-2982
Email: garjone@siue.edu
Website: http://www.siue.edu/~garjone/econ581.html
Course Description
Economists look at economic
growth in a number of different ways:
They write down dynamic models that can explain real-world facts, they study
anecdotes and patterns throughout world history, and they try to explain why
politicians in many countries are unable or unwilling to implement
growth-promoting policies. In the course
of this semester, we will use a wide set of tools from the economist’s toolbox
to gain an understanding of why some nations are rich and others are poor.
Prerequisites
I will assume that all students
in this course are comfortable with basic statistics, including multiple regression, at a level similar to MS 251. I also assume that you have completed a
principles of economics course and have taken EITHER intermediate
macroeconomics OR intermediate microeconomics, similar to Econ 302 or Econ 301,
respectively. I also assume familiarity
with differential calculus. If you have
concerns about these prerequisites, please feel free to discuss your concerns
with me.
Required Texts
David
Weil, Economic Growth, Addison-Wesley, 2005.
William Easterly, The Elusive Quest
for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, MIT
Press, 2001. (available in paperback)
The Weil book will form the
foundation of the course; you must read ALL appendices of Weil’s text. The Easterly book is designed to flesh out
Jones’s textbook approach with real-world tales of failed 20th-century
economic development programs.
Course
Most other course readings
are available SIUE’s online journal databases, http://www.library.siue.edu/lib/info/periodb.html. You can find individual journal titles via SIUE’s TDNet journal management
system.
Course Presentations
20% of your grade will be
based on a roughly 20-minute presentation that you will give to the class
during the last few weeks of the semester.
You will discuss one factor that you believe IS important for raising
long-run living standards, and one factor that you believe IS NOT important
(though widely believed to be important).
This will give you a chance to address widely-held misconceptions about
why countries have different living standards.
You will also hand in and be graded on a paper on the same
subjects. Details will be provided later
in the semester.
Course Outline and Reading Assignments
Week 1: The Facts of Growth and the Mathematical
Tools of Growth
Weil, Chapter 1 and 2.
Sala-i-Martin, “I just ran two million regressions,” American
Economic Review, May 1997. Available via
JSTOR (and handout).
Week 2: The Solow Model
Weil, Chapter 3 (including Appendix).
Easterly, Prologue and Chapter 1.
Week 3: Before Solow
mattered: The Malthus model.
Weil, Chapter 4.
Amartya Sen,
“Population: Delusion and Reality,” available at:
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/malthus/sen_NYR.htm
Burkhard Bilger,
“The Height Gap,” available at:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040405fa_fact
Easterly, Chapters 2-3.
Week 4: Human Capital and Growth
Weil, Chapter 6.
Mankiw, Romer and Weil, “A
Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 107 (May): 407-437. Available through JSTOR.
Jones and Schnieder, “Intelligence,
Human Capital and Economic Growth,” available at:
www.siue.edu/~garjone/JonesSchneApr.pdf
Easterly, Chapters 3-4
Week 5: Technology and
Productivity
Weil, Chapters 7 and 8.
Brynjolfsson and Hitt, “Beyond
Computation: Information Technology, Organizational
Transformation and Business Performance,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, Fall 2000, pages 23-48. Available through PROQUEST.
Fernald,
“Information technology and the
http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/fedletter/2003/cflsept2003_193.pdf
Easterly, Chapter 5
Week 6: New Growth Theory: Modeling the change in
technology
Weil, chapter 9.
Easterly, Chapter 6.
Adam Smith, “Wealth of Nations,”
Introduction and Chapters 1-3, available online at:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s64w/
Lucas, “The Industrial
Revolution: Past and Future,” available at:
http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm
Week 7: Midterm Examination
Week 8: Efficiency: Why aren’t all countries on the
technological frontier?
Weil, Chapter 10
Easterly, Chapter 7.
Wirtz, “Mining for Missing
Links” available at:
http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/pubs/region/03-09/wirtz.cfm
Hubbard, “Information, Decisions, and Productivity:
On-Board Computers and Capacity Utilization in
Trucking,” American Economic Review, September 2003. Available at:
http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/thomas.hubbard/research/papers/aerpdf.pdf
Week 9: Government and Trade
Weil,
Chapter 11-12.
Olson, “Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some
Nations are Rich, and Others Poor,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Spring, 1996), pp. 3-24. Available via JSTOR.
Easterly,
Chapter 8-9
Week 10: Economic Inequality and Development.
Weil, Chapter
13
Secor, “Mind the gap the debate over
global inequality heats up,” available at:
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidinthenews/articles/Globe_010503.html
Lant Pritchett, “Divergence, Big
Time,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1997.
Available via JSTOR
Sala-i-Martin,
“The Disturbing "Rise" of Global Income Inequality,” available at:
http://www.fordham.edu/economics/basu/trial_web/sala1.pdf
Easterly, Chapter 10
Week
11: Culture and/or Institutions
Weil, Chapter 14
Francis
Fukuyama, “Culture and Economic Development,” available at:
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/fukuyama/articles/Culture_development.pdf
Gregory Clark, “Why
Isn’t the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills,” Journal of
Economic History, March 1987, pages 141-173. Available through JSTOR.
Acemoglu, Johnson,
and Robinson, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical
Investigation.”
Available at:
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=144
Easterly,
Chapter 11.
Week
12:
Weil, Chapter 15
The Economist, Survey:
Brad DeLong,
“India Since Independence: An Analytic Growth
Narrative,” online at:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/India/India_Rodrik_draft1.html
Paul Collier and Jan Willem Gunnning, “Why Has
Perspectives, Summer
1999, pages 3-22. Available
via JSTOR.
Acemoglu, Johnson, and
Robinson, “An African Success Story:
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=610
Easterly, Chapter 12
Week 13: What are the world’s biggest problems?
Weil, Chapter 16
Copenhagen Consensus, http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com
and
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Files/Filer/CC/Press/UK/copenhagen_consensus_result_FINAL.pdf
Easterly, Chapter 13
Week
14:
Easterly, Chapter
14.
Student Presentations
Week 15: Is Y/L
really the right number to study?
Student Presentations
Amartya Sen,
Development as Freedom, Preface, Introduction, and Chapters 1 and
2. (Handout)
Grading
Procedures
In
addition to the presentation, you will have four homework assignments, one
midterm, and a (mostly) comprehensive final.
The class participation grade will be based on your attendance and your informed contribution to class
discussion. Completing each week’s
reading assignment before that week’s
lecture will help ensure a good class participation grade.
Class Participation 5%
Midterm 20%
Presentation 20%
Homework 20%
Final Exam 35%