Preliminary Syllabus: Economic Development II, Ph.D.
Course, Fall 2013
Professor: William Easterly
This course satisfies one of the prerequisites for the Development field (major or minor).
The other course Economic Development I will not be taught in Fall 2013/Spring 2014
because of faculty on leave, but will be taught again in Fall 2014.
The list of readings is much more extensive than what will be covered in class: you do
NOT need to read all papers to get a decent grade in the class. Students will be
responsible primarily for what is covered in class, and many papers will be cited only
briefly in class.
This list will be updated throughout the semester topic by topic as I usually incorporate
newer papers and drop older ones as I prepare each section.
Part of the reason for the long list here is to give a useful bibliography for each topic, as
well as to give you an idea of what kind of papers are being accepted for publication at
journals.
1. Introduction: what is development economics?
Chapters from Jessica Cohen and William Easterly, Editors, What Works in
Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small, Brookings Institution Press:
Washington DC:
Cohen, Jessica and William Easterly, “Introduction: Thinking Big vs. Thinking Small”
Banerjee, Abhijit, “Big Answers for Big Questions: The Presumption of Growth Policy”
--Comment by Peter Klenow
--Comment by William Easterly
2. Historical Legacies and Development
Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg. (2013). How Deep Are the Roots of Economic
Development?. Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 51, no 2.
Dell, Melissa (2010), “The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita,” Econometrica,
Volume 78, Issue 6, pages 1863–1903, November 2010, http://econwww.mit.edu/files/5645
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Dell M. Path Dependence in Development: Evidence from the Mexican Revolution.
2012.
Feyrer, James D., and Bruce Sacerdote, “Colonialism and Modern Income: Islands as
Natural Experiments,” Review of Economics and Statistics, May 2009, 91(2): 245–262
http://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v91y2009i2p245-262.html
Nunn, Nathan, “Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa’s Past to its Current
Underdevelopment”, Journal of Development Economics, 83 (2007), 157–175.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/legacy_jde.pdf
Nunn, Nathan, “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades,” Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 123 (2008), 139–176.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/empirical_slavery.pdf
Sacerdote, Bruce. “Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human
Capital."The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 87, Issue 2 - May, 2005.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~bsacerdo/wpapers/Slavery3.pdf
Putterman, Louis and David Weil “Post-1500 Population Flows and the Long Run
Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality”, Quarterly Journal of
Economics 125:4, November 2010, http://www.nber.org/papers/w14448
Comin, Diego, William Easterly, and Erick Gong, “Was the Wealth of Nations
Determined in 1000 B.C.?”, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 2
(July 2010): 65–97
http://williameasterly.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/60_easterly_comin_gong_wealthofnations_prp.pdf
Wacziarg, Romain and Enrico Spolaore, “The Diffusion of Development”, Quarterly
Journal of Economics, May 2009, vol. 124, no. 2
3. Culture, Social Norms, and Development
Nunn N, Alesina A, Giuliano P. On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough.
Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2013;128(2):469-530.
Nunn, Nathan, and Leonard Wantchekon, “The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the
Evolution of Mistrust in Africa: An Empirical Analysis,” American Economic
Review, 2011, Vol 11, No 7, 5221-3252.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/Trust_AER_Rev2.pdf
Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, Luigi Zingales, Civic Capital as the Missing Link, in Jess
Benhabib, Alberto Bisin and Matthew Jackson, editors, Handbook of Social
Economics, North Holland 2010
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Alberto Bisin and Thierry Verdier, The Economics of Cultural Transmission and
Socialization, in Jess Benhabib, Alberto Bisin and Matthew Jackson, editors,
Handbook of Social Economics, North Holland 2010
http://www.nyu.edu/econ/user/bisina/BV%20HSOC.pdf
Philippe Aghion, Yann Algan, Pierre Cahuc and Andrei Shleifer, Regulation and
Distrust, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 2010.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/aghion/files/Regulation%20and%20Di
strust.pdf
Licht, Amir N., Chanan Goldschmidt, and Shalom H. Schwartz (2007), Culture rules:
The foundations of the rule of law and other norms of governance, Journal of
Comparative Economics, 35 659–688
Tabellini, Guido, “The Scope of Cooperation: Values and Incentives,” Quarterly Journal
of Economics, Vol. 123, 2008, pp. 905–950.
Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Gerard Roland "Culture, institutions and the wealth of
nations," 2013, http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~ygorodni/gorrol_culture.pdf
Miguel, Edward, and Ray Fisman, “Corruption, Norms and Legal Enforcement: Evidence
from Diplomatic Parking Tickets,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 115, 2007,
pp. 1020–1048.
Miguel, Edward, Sebastian Saiegh, and Shanker Satyanath, Civil War Exposure and
Violence, Economics and Politics, Vol. 23 (1), March 2011.
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~emiguel/pdfs/miguel_soccer.pdf
4. The neoclassical model of development: Factor Accumulation v. Productivity
Hsieh, Chang Tai, What Explains the Industrial Revolution in East Asia? Evidence from
the Factor Markets, American Economic Review, June 2002.
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~chsieh/aea3.pdf
Hsieh, Chang Tai and Peter Klenow, Relative Prices and Relative Prosperity, American
Economic Review, 2007, http://www.klenow.com/RPandRP.pdf
Easterly, William and Ross Levine, “It’s not factor accumulation: stylized facts and
growth models”, World Bank Economic Review, Volume 15, Number 2, 2001
Klenow, Peter and Andres Rodriguez-Clare (1997). “The Neoclassical Revival in Growth
Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997,
Volume 12, 73-103.
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Caselli, F. and J Feyrer The Marginal Product of Capital, The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, May 2007, Vol. 122, No. 2, Pages 535-568
Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, and Kaivan Munshi “The (Mis)allocation of Capital,”
Journal of the European Economic Association 1(2-3): 484-494, 2003
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo “Growth Theory through the Lens of Development
Economics,” in Steve Durlauf and Philippe Aghion, (eds.),Handbook of Economic
Growth, Elsevier Science Ltd.-North Holland: 2005, Vol. 1A, pp. 473-552.
Charles I. Jones, Intermediate Goods and Weak Links in the Theory of Economic
Development, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3 (April 2011): 1–28
5. Endogenous Growth Models: Increasing v. Constant v. Diminishing Returns
Charles I. Jones and Paul M. Romer , The New Kaldor Facts: Ideas, Institutions,
Population, and Human Capital, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
2010, 2:1, 224–245
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.2.1.224
Jones, Chad (2005) “Growth and Ideas”, in Aghion and Durlauf, eds., Handbook of
Economic Growth, http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~chad/handbook200.pdf
Galor, Oded, "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of
Economic Growth, 2005, pp.171-293
Galor, Oded and David N. Weil, "Population, Technology and Growth: From Malthusian
Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic
Review, 90, September 2000, 806-828
Galor Oded “Comparative Economic Development: Insights from Unified Growth
Theory,” International Economic Review, 51, 1-44 (February 2010).
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6. Political economy of ideas and ideologies in development
Benabou, Richard and Jean Tirole. "Belief In A Just World And Redistributive Politics,"
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006, v121(2,May), 699-746.
Benabou, Roland. Ideology," Journal of the European Economic Association April-May
2008 6(2–3), 321–352.
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/jeea%202008%206%202-3%20321.pdf
Roland Benabou and Jean Tirole, "Identity, Morals and Taboos: Beliefs as
Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126, (2011), 805-855.
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/QJE%202011.pdf
Glaeser, Edward, The Political Economy of Hatred Quarterly Journal of Economics
120(1) (2005): 45-86.
Glaeser, Edward. “Paternalism and Psychology.” The University of Chicago Law Review
73, 1 (2006): 133-156. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11789
7. Democracy, Political Economy, Leaders, and Development
Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2005) Economic Origins of Dictatorship and
Democracy, New York: Cambridge University Press
Besley, Timothy, Torsten Persson, Daniel Sturm, “Political Competition and Economic
Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States”, Review of Economic
Studies, 77(3), 1329-1352, 2010 http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/tbesley/papers/bps.pdf
Aghion, Philippe, Alberto Alesina, and Francesco Trebbi “Endogenous Political
Institutions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2004, 119: 565-612
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/alesina/papers/aatqje.pdf
Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini, “Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and
Economic Change”, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2010.
Daniel Berger, William Easterly, Nathan Nunn, Shanker Satyanath, “Commercial
Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War,” American
Economic Review, April 2013
Daniel Berger, Alejandro Corvalan, William Easterly, Shanker Satyanath “Do
superpower interventions have short and long term consequences for
democracy?” Journal of Comparative Economics, Volume 41, Issue 1, February
2013, pages 22-34.
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Jones, Benjamin F., and Benjamin A. Olken. 2005. “Do Leaders Matter? National
Leadership and Growth since World War II.” Quarterly Journal of Economics,
120(3): 835–64. http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/2915
Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken, “Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations
on Institutions and War,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 2009,
1:2, 55–87 http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/3055
William Easterly and Steven Pennings, “How Much Do Leaders Affect Growth? Not as
Much as You Think,” May 2013.
8. Foreign Aid: Saving the World v. One Step At a Time
Easterly, William (2009), “Can the West Save Africa?”, Journal of Economic Literature
Werker, Eric, Faisal Z. Ahmed, and Charles Cohen. 2009. "How Is Foreign Aid Spent? Evidence from a
Natural Experiment." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1(2): 225–44.
Rajan, Raghuram G. and Arvind Subramanian, “Aid and Growth: What Does the CrossCountry Evidence Really Show?”, July 2007, Review of Economics and Statistics
Easterly, William and Claudia Williamson, Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst
of Aid Agency Practices, World Development, 2011
Easterly, William, Ross Levine, and David Roodman "New Data, New Doubts: A
Comment on Burnside and Dollar's "Aid, Policies, and Growth", American
Economic Review, June 2004
Djankov, Simeon, Jose Montalvo and Marta Reynal-Querol, “The Curse of Aid”,
Journal of Economic Growth, June 2009.
9. Thinking Big vs. Thinking Small in Development
Durlauf, S., P. Johnson and J. Temple “Growth Econometrics,” with, in Handbook of
Economic Growth, P. Aghion and S. Durlauf, eds., Amsterdam: North Holland,
2006.
Gernot Doppelhofer, Ronald Miller, and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, "Determinants of LongTerm Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE)
Approach," American Economic Review, September 2004
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Ciccone, Antonio and Marek Jarocinski, Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data
Tell? , American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2010
Duflo, Esther, Rachel Glennerster, and Michael Kremer (2008) “Using Randomization in
Development Economics Research: A Toolkit” in Handbook of Development
Economics, Volume 4, North-Holland
Kremer, Michael and Alaka Holla (2008) “Pricing and Access: Lessons from
Randomized Evaluations in Education and Health”, in W. Easterly and J. Cohen,
editors, What Works in Development? Thinking Big vs. Thinking Small, Brookings
Institution Press.
Kremer, Michael, Jessica Leino, Edward Miguel, and Alix Peterson Zwane. 2011. Spring
Cleaning: Rural Water Impacts, Valuation, and Property Rights Institutions.
Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 1: 145-205
Kremer, Michael, Esther Duflo, and Jon Robinson. 2011. Nudging Farmers to Use
Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya. American Economic
Review 101, no. 6 (October 2011): 2350-90.
Esther Duflo, Human values and the design of the fight against poverty,The Tanner
Lectures on Human Values, Harvard University, May 2012
Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennerster, and Edward Miguel, Reshaping Institutions:
Evidence on Aid Impacts Using a Pre-Analysis Plan, Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 2012, 127(4), 1755-1812
Angus Deaton, Instruments, randomization, and learning about development, Journal of
Economic Literature, 48 (June 2010), pp. 424-455
Angus Deaton, 2012, NYU Development Research Institute Annual Conference, Lecture
on Banerjee and Duflo, Poor Economics, (video link to 35 minute lecture)
http://nyudri.org/events/past-events/annual-conference-2012-debates-indevelopment/
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