Econ 450: Development Economics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Economics Professor: Richard Akresh Semester: Spring 2017 Class meeting time: Monday/Wednesday 9:30-10:50 Classroom: David Kinley Hall, Room 317 Office: David Kinley Hall, Room 101C Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Monday/Wednesday 11:00-12:00, or by appointment Website: faculty.las.illinois.edu/akresh/ Course Description: In this course, we will use economic theory and analysis to aid our understanding of conditions in sub-Saharan Africa. We examine why developing countries in Africa face extreme poverty, high child mortality, low levels of education, poor health, and high levels of child labor and which policies, if any, might be effective in alleviating these problems. Emphasis will be placed on analyzing current economic issues and policies in their historical context. The course is organized around a series of broad questions, which will be explored with reference to particular societies. We will examine the historical roots of the current structure of African economies, the economic reform process, agricultural and industrial development, patterns of poverty and income distribution, health and education and international economic relations. Course Prerequisites: Econ 102 and Econ 103. Econ 302 strongly recommended. Course Requirements and Evaluation: Grades will be based on the following: - Map quiz on African geography (7.5%) - Research summary (7.5%) - Midterm exam 1 (25%) - Midterm exam 2 (25%) - Final exam (35%) - Each student is expected to be able to discuss the required readings assigned for each class. Exam Policy: In the event that a student has an excused absence from one of the midterm exams, the points from the missed exam will be placed on the final. There are no make-up exams. The final will then be worth 60% rather than 35%. In the event that a student misses a second midterm exam, the instructor reserves the right to give the student a zero on that exam. During the exams, only pens/pencils for writing are allowed in the room. There are to be no papers/books, cell phones, watches, headphones, or other items that connect to the internet. Students found to be using unapproved items are in violation of the Academic Integrity policy of the University and will be subject to disciplinary action.2Graduate students taking Econ 450 for 4 credits: To earn the 4th credit, you will need to complete an additional project in addition to all of the course requirements that the undergrads will complete (map quiz, research summary, 2 midterms, final exam). This project will be a 15-20 page, original research paper focused on a topic about economic development in Africa. The paper must use 1 inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font, and must have a references section listing all of the sources you have used in the paper. By February 24, you must email me a 1 paragraph project proposal detailing the research question you will be working on. I will respond to these emails to approve the research topic. Only research topics approved by me are acceptable. Research summary: Students will work in groups of 4 to write a short (2 page) summary of one of the articles tagged on the reading list. The articles that need research summaries are tagged with [research summary]. I will post all of the summaries on the compass course site. Important Dates: MAP QUIZ: Wednesday, February 8 (in class) MIDTERM #1: Wednesday, February 22 (in class) MIDTERM #2: Monday, April 3 (in class) FINAL EXAM: Friday, May 5, 7:00-10:00 PM Readings On the compass course site, I have added links to most of the readings. There are 6 readings from older books that are not online and I put them in a course reader that will be available in the Illini Union Bookstore. Recommended readings: Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo. 2011. Poor Economics. Public Affairs Publishing. Easterly, William. 2002. The Elusive Quest for Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Easterly, William. 2009. “Can the West Save Africa?” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w14363), Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2): 373-444. Fisman, Raymond and Edward Miguel. 2008. Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations. Princeton University Press. Radelet, Steven. 2010. Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way. Brookings Institution Press. Africa News and Development Blogs: News: BBC Africa: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm All Africa: http://allafrica.com Africa Confidential: http://www.africa-confidential.com/news3Blogs: http://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/ http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/ http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/ http://africacan.worldbank.org/ http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/ http://chrisblattman.com/ http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/ http://www.poverty-action.org/blog Final Exam Conflict Policy: From the University’s final exam policy: - Any student having more than two consecutive final examinations is entitled to rescheduling as follows if he or she takes the following action no later than the last day of classes: o The student must investigate whether a conflict examination is being held at another time for any of the examinations involved. o If a conflict examination has been scheduled for any of the courses, the student must take one or more of these conflict examinations. If conflict examinations are offered for more than one course, the student must take the conflict for the course that has the largest number of students. o If no conflict examinations have been scheduled, the student must contact the instructor of the course having the largest number of students. The contact must be made no later than the last day of classes, and that instructor must provide a makeup examination. o Normally in a semester several combined-sections, conflict, and noncombined examinations are given at the same time. As a guide to resolving conflicts, an order of priority has been established within each examination period, and a student should resolve a conflict using the published examination schedules and the following priority guidelines.  National and state professional examinations (e.g. CPA, actuarial science, Architecture Registration Examination) take priority over campus final examinations. An instructor must offer a conflict examination to a student scheduled to take a national or state professional examination and a campus