Economics 731 Economic Development

The goal of this course is to explore the application of microeconomic analysis to issues of development in poor countries. The focus of this course is the study of household behavior and the analysis of rural institutions. The course will cover the neoclassical agricultural household model and criticisms of that model, the structure of rural factor markets (concentrating on the effects of risk and information problems), general equilibrium analyses of village economies, household savings and investment (especially in education), issues of health and nutrition, technological innovation and project evaluation. T.N. Srinivasan’s companion course (Economics 730) covered more general growth and general equilibrium models of development. This course presumes knowledge of development economics at an undergraduate level. Students should have knowledge of the structural characteristics of developing countries, and be familiar with the traditional models of development economics (basic growth theory and dual economy models). In addition, I will assume that you have taken the first-year graduate sequences in microeconomics and econometrics. Course Requirements: 1. The first goal of this course is a critical reading of the current literature on the empirica