Economic Growth and Development
____FE 411
Course Syllabus
Spring Semester 2016
Professor:
Office:
Telephone:
Office Hours:
Website:
Email:
Course meeting times/places:
Ahmed S. Rahman
Nimitz G028
3-6897
W 1000 – 1200 or by appointment
http://www.usna.edu/User/econ/rahman
rahman@usna.edu
Section 1021: TR8, SA 103
Section 3041: TR9, SA 103
Course Objective:
The aim of this course is to provide a theoretical and empirical examination
of economic growth and income differences between countries. The course focuses
on both the historical experience of countries that are currently rich and the process of
catch-up among countries that are currently poor. Topics include population growth, the
accumulation of physical and human capital, technological change, natural resources,
income distribution, geography, government and culture.
Reading (required):
Economic Growth, 3rd edition, by David N. Weil, Addison Wesley, 2013. The
assigned chapters should be read before the material is covered in class. This will greatly
help you to digest the material and get more out of each lecture. You are also responsible
for all end-of-chapter appendices for each assigned chapter, unless otherwise noted.
Reading (supplemental):
In addition to our textbook, I will occasionally assign articles that will help
supplement certain topics. I will let you know well ahead of class the article(s) we shall
discuss, and will post these on my website. It is therefore important to periodically check
the site for additional readings.
Course work:
Exams: There will be just two exams—a midterm and a final. These will test
your comprehension of the material covered in the class notes and the textbook. The final
exam will be comprehensive, covering the entire semester. Exams will consist of multipart questions that will require you to work out problems and respond in short answer to
essay questions. Any midshipmen missing scheduled exams without prior approval from
me will receive a grade of zero on the exam. If you know you are going to miss an exam
(for an officially sanctioned reason), TELL ME AT LEAST TWO WEEKS BEFORE the
date of the exam.
Problem Sets: There will be weekly problem sets, consisting of a combination of problem
solving and short answer. I encourage you to work together on these; however, come due
date I will not collect your work. Instead, we will have weekly quizzes, where I will ask one
question (almost verbatim) from the problem set – these quizzes will be closed-book, closednotes, closed-mouth. So, it is in your best interest not simply to finish each assignment, but to
truly understand each assignment ahead of time.
If you miss class on the day a quiz is given, you will NOT have an opportunity to make up
the quiz. For missed quizzes due to properly excused absences, you will receive no grade,
and your remaining quiz scores will be more-highly weighed in calculating your overall
problem set score. For missed quizzes due to unexcused absences, you will receive a zero.
I will post answer keys for all the problem sets roughly one week after they are due. You
should use these as study aids, particularly since the format of the midterms and final exam
will be modeled after these exercises.
Paper Assignments: There will be two paper assignments this semester, a data analysis
project, and a book critique. Each is briefly explained below.
Project 1 - Empirical Study: You will have a 5-7 page paper that you will write in groups of
two. In this project you will empirically analyze a particular aspect of economic
development. Using both excel and Stata, you will analyze the relationships between various
data series, as well as discuss the potential for causal relationships. The cross country data
will be available on the class website. More details to come.
Project 2 - Book Review and Critique: You will have a 5-7 page paper due around the last
day of class. This paper will take the form of a book review and critique. Each student will
choose a book from the class list (see below) early in the semester, and write a thorough
review of the text, including relevant discussion of related works, and perceived strengths
and weaknesses of the reviewed book. Further, each of you will give brief presentations on
these reports near the end of the semester. All reports will be posted on the class website.
You will be responsible for knowing the content of these reports, and you will be questioned
about them in the final exam.
Grade Breakdown:
Your final grade shall be weighted as follows:
Midterm
Empirical Exercise
Book Critique/Presentation
Quizzes and Participation
Final Exam
20%
15%
15%
20%
30%
100%
Tentative Course Outline and Schedule:
* The following schedule is subject to change at my discretion. I will however notify you
immediately of any change to the proposed order of topics or any other potential change.
Specific dates will be provided soon.
Section I: Overview
Topic
Important Dates
Readings
Week 1:
The Facts of Growth
Chapter 1
Week 2:
The Mathematical Tools of
Growth
Chapter 2
Section II: Factor Accumulation
Week 3:
The Solow Model, Population
Growth
Chapter 3, 4
Week 4:
Before Solow Mattered – the
Malthusian Model
Chapter 4
Week 5:
The Economics of Demography
Chapter 5
Week 6:
Human Capital
Exam 1
Chapter 6
Section III: Productivity
Week 7:
Measuring our “Ignorance,”
Technological Change
Chapter 7, 8
Week 8:
Technological Change,
Efficiency
Chapter 9, 10
Section IV: Fundamentals
Week 9:
The Open Economy
Week 10:
Government and Growth
Week 11:
A break, thank God…
Week 12:
Income Inequality and Culture
Chapter 11
Exam 2
Chapters 12
Chapter 13, 14
Presentations
Week 13:
Climate and Resources
Week 14:
Presentations
Week 15:
Presentations
Week 16
Miscellany and Comprehensive
Review
Week 17
Finals
Chapters 15, 16
TBA
Project List of Books for Book Review and Critique:
“Why Nations Fail”
“Capital”
“The Second Machine Age”
“The Innovator’s Dilemma”
“The Tyranny of Experts”
“The Road to Global Prosperity”
“War Front to Store Front”
“Poor Economics”
“The End of Poverty”
“The Bright Continent”
“The Crash Course”
“The Quest for Prosperity”
“The Bottom Billion”
“Creating a World without Poverty”
“The New Geography of Jobs”
“Dead Aid”
“The Great Escape”
“Development as Freedom”
“Globalization and Its Discontents”
“The Rise and Decline of Nations”
“Breakout Nations”
“Why Growth Matters”
“Hive Mind”
“The Rise and Fall of American Growth”
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Thomas Piketty
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Clayton M. Christensen
William Easterly
Michael Mandelbaum
Paul Brinkley
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Jeffrey Sachs
Dayo Olopade
Chris Martenson
Justin Lin
Paul Collier
Karl Webber
Enrico Moretti
Dambisa Moyo
Angus Deaton
Amartya Sen
Joseph Stiglitz
Mancur Olson
Ruchir Sharma
Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya
Garrett Jones
Robert J. Gordon