Economia politica - Economics

Students will understand why some countries or regions are rich and others poor. They will acquire knowledge about how deep this inequality is rooted in history, and they will be provided with a set of academic tools helping them to understand how economic historians an long-run growth and development economists measure inequality and identify its underlying causes. Students will learn how to recognise the barriers to economic development and progress in poor world regions alongside the means that scholars propose to eliminate these barriers based on lessons from history.

A basic understanding of empirical methods and statistical estimation techniques is helpful.

The curriculum consists of academic research articles from top economics or economic history journals, for example: - D Acemoglu, S Johnson, JA Robinson (2001), “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,” American Economic Review 91, pp. 1369-1401 - E Spolaore and R Wacziarg (2013), “How Deep Are the Roots of Economic Development?”, Journal of Economic Literature 51, pp. 325– 369 - JV Henderson, T Squires, A Storeygard, D Weil (2018), “The Global Distribution of Economic Activity: Nature, History, and the Role of Trade,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 133, pp. 357–406

Non-mandatory in-class lectures

Essay writing and multiple-choice exams. Exams can be oral if the circumstances dictate this.

In-class lectures and possibly student presentations.