G6303 Graduate Development
Kiki Pop-Eleches
e-mail: cp2124@columbia.edu
Spring 2010
101 KNOX HALL
Thursday 2:10-4 pm
Office Hours: Thursday 10-12 (please come, really) or by appointment, please email or stop by 1402C IAB
Course description: This course examines the micro-economic development literature, with an emphasis on empirical applications.
Recommended background readings
Ray [1998] – a great undergraduate level textbook
Deaton [1997] – a must have for those interested in empirical development
Course Requirements and Grading
I expect you to have read the papers we will discuss in class and participate actively in the discussion.
1. Class presentations: You will be required to make one (or two) presentations to the class of empirical papers that I will assign ($ see below). These presentations will be short (15 -20 minutes) and no more than 7 slides long - 25%
2. Power Point Presentation: One research project outline (7 pages maximum) to be presented in the last day of class - 25%
3. Final exam (closed book, 2 hours) – 25%
4. Class and seminar participation - 25%
You are required to attend four meetings of the Development
Seminar (the schedule is posted at httphttp://jagiellonia.econ.columbia.edu/colloquia/development/),
which meets on Thursdays, 4:15 – 5:45 in room 1027
Prerequisites: Core knowledge of microeconomic and
econometrics at the graduate level
Lecture 1 (January 21) Introduction
- to the course
- to the field of development
- to data
-
Lecture 2 (January 28) – Nutrition
***Subramanian, Shankar and Angus Deaton (1996), "The Demand for Food and Calories," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 104 (1), pp 133-62.
***Duncan, Thomas et. al
(2003), "Iron deficiency and the well-being of
older adults:Early results from a randomized nutrition intervention"
(http://emlab.berkeley.edu
*Strauss (1996) JPE “Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?”
*Strauss, John and Duncan Thomas (1995), "Human Resources:
Empirical Modeling of Household and Family Decisions." In
Behrman, Jere and T.N. Srinivasan,
eds., Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 3.
* Srinivasan, T. N. (1994), "Destitution: A Discourse," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 32 (4), pp. 1842-55.
* Dasgupta, Partha and Debraj Ray (1986), "Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory," The Economic Journal, Vol. 96 (384), pp. 1011-1034.
$ Field, Robles and Torero (2007) ”The
Cognitive Link Between Geography and Development: Iodine deficiency and
schooling attainment in
(http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/field/files/Field_IDD_Tanzania.pdf)
Lecture 3 (February 4) – Health
*** Gertler, Paul, and Jonathan Gruber (2002) "Insuring Consumption Against Illness," American Economic Review, 92 (1): 51-70.
(http://www.iadb.org/res/files/SocialPolicy2/Papers/AER_GertlerGruber.pdf)
***Miguel, Edward and Michael Kremer (2004, "
(http://papers.nber.org/papers/w8481.pdf)
***Duflo, Esther (2000), “Child Health and
Household Resources in
(http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/717 )
$ Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson (2007, “Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth”, Journal of Political Economy
(http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/529000?cookieSet=1)
Lecture 4 (February 11) – Fertility
*** Pritchett, Lant “Desired Fertility and the Impact of Population Policies. Population and Development Review, Vol.20 (no.1), March 1994.
(http://are.berkeley.edu/~barham/ARE298/Readings/Pritchett1.pdf)
Comments and Replies on the above article (these are short):
***Knowles J.K, J.S Akin, P.K. Guilkey (1994). "The Impact of Population Policies: Comment" in Population Development Review, 20(3), pp.611-615.
(http://are.berkeley.edu/~barham/ARE298/Readings/Pritchett4.pdf)
***Bongaarts, John (1994). "The Impact of Population Policies: Comment" in Population Development Review, 20(3), pp.616-620.
(http://are.berkeley.edu/~barham/ARE298/Readings/Pritchett3.pdf)
***Pritchett, Lant H. (1994). "The Impact of Population Policies: Reply" in Population and Development Review, 20(3), pp 621-630.
(http://are.berkeley.edu/~barham/ARE298/Readings/Pritchett2.pdf)
*** Pop-Eleches, Cristian, “The Supply of Birth Control Methods, Education
and Fertility: Evidence from
(http://www.columbia.edu/~cp2124/papers/fertility_latest.pdf)
* Becker, Gary S. and H. Gregg Lewis. 1973. ”On the Interaction between the Quantity and Quality of Children,” Journal of Political Economy, Mar.-Apr., 81:2 (Part II), pp. S279-S288.
$ Miller, Grant (2007) “Contraception as
Development? New Evidence from Family Planning in
(http://www.stanford.edu/~ngmiller/family_planning.pdf )
Lecture 5 (February 18) – Family and Children
*** Udry, Christopher (1996), "Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 104 (5), pp. 1010-1045.
*** Black, Devereux and Salvanes (2005), “The More
the Merrier? The
Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children’s Education”
(http://cee.lse.ac.uk/cee%20dps/ceedp50.pdf )
* Garg, Ashish
and Jonathan Morduch (1998), "Sibling Rivalry
and the Gender Gap: Evidence from Child Health Outcomes in
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/lbermxk1ly7p1cwc/fulltext.pdf )
$ Lin, Ming-Jen, Jin-Tan Liu and Nancy
Qian (2008) “More Missing Women, Fewer
Dying Girls: The Impact of Abortion on Sex Ratios at Birth and Excess Female
Mortality in
(http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Nancy_Qian/Papers/Abortion_20081021.pdf)
Lecture 6 (February 25) – Institutions
*** Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2001) “The Colonial
Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,” American Economic
Review, volume 91, No. 5, 1369-1401.
(http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/276 )
*** Banerjee, Abhijit and Lakshmi Iyer, (2002), “History, Institutions and Economic
Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India.” mimeo.
(http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID321721_code020813510.pdf?abstractid=321721 )
* Knack, Steven and Philip Keefer (1995) “Institutions and Economic Performance:
Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Measures,” Economics and Politics, 7, 207-
227.
* Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James Robinson (2002): “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution” Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 107, pp. 1231-1294.
$ Jones, Benjamin F. and Olken, Benjamin A. (2005): “Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth Since World War II”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120, (http://www.nber.org/~bolken/leaders.pdf )
Lecture 7 (March 4) – Regulation
*** Djankov, R. La Porta, and F. Lopez-de-Silanes and A. Shleifer (2002) ” The Regulation of Entry”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 2002.
(http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/shleifer/files/reg_entry.pdf )
*** Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess
(2004),”Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from
(http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/rburgess/wp/indreg.pdf)
$ Bertrand, Marianne, Djankov Simeon, Hanna, Rema and Mullainathan, Sendhil, (2006) "Does Corruption Produce Unsafe Drivers?"
(http://ipl.econ.duke.edu/bread/papers/working/117.pdf )
Lecture 8 (March 11) – Credit & Savings
*** Burgess, Robin And Rohini Pande(2003),
"Do Rural Banks Matter? Evidence from the Indian Social Banking
Experiment," mimeo, Yale.
(http://www.princeton.edu/rpds/seminars/pdfs/burgess_rural_banks.pdf )
*** Morduch, Jonathan
(1999), "The Microfinance Promise," Journal of Economic Literature,
Vol. 37 (4), pp. 1569-1614.
(http://www.nyu.edu/projects/morduch/documents/microfinance/Microfinance_Promise.pdf )
***Aportela, Fernando (1998) 'The effects of financial access on savings by low-income people.' Mimeo, MIT
(http://www.lacea.org/meeting2000/FernandoAportela.pdf)
* Pitt, Mark and Shahidur Khandker (1998), "The Impact of Group-based Credit
Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh
* Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan,
and Wesley Yin (2006), “Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment
Savings Product in the
(http://karlan.yale.edu/p/SEED.pdf )
$ Karlan, Dean and J. Zinman (2008) “Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts”, Review of Financial Studies
(http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jzinman/Papers/Karlan&Zinman_ExpandingCreditAccess_oct08.pdf )
No Lecture
(March 18 NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK)
Lecture 9 (March 25) & Lecture 10 (April 1) – Savings, Risk and Insurance, Consumption Smoothing
***Paxson, Christina (1992), “Using Weather Variability to Estimate the Response of Savings to Transitory Income in Thailand, American Economic Review 82: 15-33.
***Morduch, Jonathan (1995), "Income Smoothing and Consumption Smoothing,Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(3), Summer, pp. 103-114.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28199522%299%3A3%3C103%3AISACS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8&origin=bc
***Murdoch, Jonathan, “Risk, Production, and Saving: Theory and Evidence from Indian Households
* Townsend, Robert (1994) “Risk and Insurance in Village
*Ravallion, Martin and Shubham
Chaudhuri (1997), “Risk and Insurance in Village
$ Maccini, Sharon & Dean Yang, (2008), "Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall," American Economic Review
(http://www-personal.umich.edu/~deanyang/papers/macciniyang_undertheweather.pdf)
Lecture 11 (April 8) – HIV/AIDS and ORPHANS
*** Thirumurthy,
Harsha, Markus Goldstein and Joshua Graff Zivin, 2008. “The economic impact of AIDS treatment: labor
supply in western
*** Thornton, Rebecca L. 2008. "The Demand for, and Impact of, Learning HIV Status.," American Economic Review, 98 (5):, 1829-63.
(http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rebeccal/Thornton%20HIV%20Testing.pdf )
*Anne Case and Cally
Ardington “The impact of parental death on
school enrollment and achievement: Longitudinal evidence from
(http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/v043/43.3case.pdf )
* Evans, Dave and Ted Miguel (2004), “Orphans
and Schooling in
(http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~emiguel/pdfs/miguel_orphans.pdf )
*Akresh Richard
(2004), “Adjusting Household Structure: School Enrollment Impacts of Child
Fostering in
(http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID614482_code199490.pdf?abstractid=614482&mirid=1)
$ Dupas, Pascaline
(2008), "Relative Risks and the Market for Sex: Teenage Pregnancy, HIV,
and Partner Selection in
(http://www.econ.ucla.edu/pdupas/Relative%20Risks%20and%20the%20Market%20for%20Sex_10.07.pdf)
Lecture 12 (April 15) – WRAPPING UP
***Banerjee and Duflo,
"The Experimental Approach to Development"
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/3158
***Deaton, Angus "Instruments of development: Randomization in the
tropics, and the search for the elusive keys to economic development"
http://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/Instruments%20of%20development%20v1d_mar09_all.pdf
***Ravallion, Martin "Should the Randomistas Rule?"
http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1368&context=ev
Lecture 13 and Lecture 14 (April 22 and April 29) - Student
presentations