Wealth & Poverty of Nations.

Catalog description

This course explores one of the most important, long-running questions in economics: Why are some places so rich while others are so poor? In this course, students examine the causes of economic growth in the very long run. Looking back over the last several hundred, and in some cases several thousand, years, we search for the "deep determinants" of growth - how the fundamentals of geography and environment, along with changes in institutions, technology, and economic integration have allowed some, but not all, societies to prosper and provide their members with remarkably high standards of living. This process has accelerated rapidly among the economically developed countries over the last two hundred years, in what has been termed modern economic growth. Only in a long-run historical context can we adequately address the stark divergence between these countries and those who have remained poor. Throughout, students will learn to think analytically and rigorously about economic growth and development, largely through reading, discussing, and critiquing books and journal articles. Prerequisites: ECON 211 , ECON 212 .