Economic Development I, Ph.D. Course, Fall 2014
Thursdays, 2:05-4:05, Room 624
Professor: William Easterly
This course satisfies one of the two-course requirement for the Development field
(primary or secondary), other courses that are available for this are Development II
(Allcott), and Topics in Finance and Development (Morduch) (both to be given in Spring
2015).
The list of readings is much more extensive than what will be covered in class.
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
David Weil, Vernon Henderson, and Adam Storeygard "Measuring Economic Growth
from Outer Space" American Economic Review, 102(2), April 2012, pp. 9941028 .
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.
Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg. (2014) Long-Term Barriers to Economic
Development, in Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of
Economic Growth, vol. 2A, Chapter 3, pp. 121-176. Amsterdam: North Holland,
2014.
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Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou, Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and
Contemporary African Development, Econometrica, 2013, 81(1): 113–152
Nunn N, Qian N. The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization:
Evidence from a Historical Experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
2011;126(2):593-650.
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
Dell M. Path Dependence in Development: Evidence from the Mexican Revolution.
2012.
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
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
3. Culture, Social Norms, and Development
Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou, National Institutions and Subnational
Development in Africa, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2014, 129 (1): 151-213
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
Nunn N. (2012) Culture and the Historical Process. Economic History of Developing
Regions. 2012; 27(S1):108-126
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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
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
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. Neoclassical and Endogenous Growth Models: Factor Accumulation v.
Productivity, Increasing Returns
Chang-Tai Hsieh and Peter Klenow, "Development Accounting," American Economic
Journal: Macroeconomics, January 2010
Chang-Tai Hsieh and Peter Klenow, "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China
and India" Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, November 2009, 14031448.
Charles I. Jones, "Misallocation, Economic Growth, and Input-Output Economics"
in Advances in Economics and Econometrics, Tenth World Congress, Volume II,
Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Charles I. Jones, Intermediate Goods and Weak Links in the Theory of Economic
Development, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3 (April 2011): 1–28
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
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http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.2.1.224
Galor Oded “Comparative Economic Development: Insights from Unified Growth
Theory,” International Economic Review, 51, 1-44 (February 2010).
5. Political economy of ideas and ideologies in development
Roland Benabou, Davide Ticchi, and Andrea Vindigni (2013) "Forbidden
Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth".
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.
6. Democracy, Political Economy, Leaders, and Development
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
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.
Erik Meyersson, “Political Man on Horseback: Military Coups and Development,” July
6, 2014 http://erikmeyersson.com/research/
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
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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? An
Exercise in Growth Accounting.” 2014
7. Foreign Aid: Saving the Poor v. Unintended Consequences
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.
Easterly, William and Claudia Williamson, Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst
of Aid Agency Practices, World Development, 2011
Nunn N, Qian N., U.S. Food Aid and Civil Conflict, American Economic Review.
2014;104(6):1630-1666.
Qian N. 2014. Making Progress on Foreign Aid. Annu. Rev. Econ. 3: Submitted.
Doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-080614-115553
8. Development and US Foreign Policy
Berger, Daniel, William Easterly, Nathan Nunn, Shanker Satyanath. Commercial
Imperialism? Political Influence During the Cold War. American Economic Review (2012).
Berger, Daniel, Alejandro Corvalan, William Easterly, Shanker Satyanath. Do Superpowers
Have Short and Long Term Consequences For Democracy?. Journal of Comparative
Economics, 41, no. 1 (2013): 22-34.
Qian, Nancy and David Yanagizawa, “The Strategic Determinants of U.S. Human Rights
Reporting: Evidence from the Cold War” Journal of European Economic Association, Vol. 2 No.
2-3, 2009 May-June.
Qian, Nancy and David Yanagizawa, “Government Distortion in Independently Owned Media:
Evidence from U.S. Cold War News Coverage of Human Rights ,” Working Paper (2013) PDF
9. Thinking Big vs. Thinking Small in Development
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Ciccone, Antonio and Marek Jarocinski, Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data
Tell? , American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2010
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
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Under the Thumb of History? Political Institutions
and the Scope for Action, October 2013
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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