THINK ABOUT A COURSE THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY MOST EXCITED ABOUT TEACHING. WHY IS THIS AN IMPORTANT COURSE? HOW DOES IT DEEPEN ONE’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD?
I enjoy teaching a graduate course on development economics. One of the course objectives is to explore the cutting edge literature emerging on several important topics in development economics. Another objective of the course is to improve understanding of the most recent empirical methods used in the literature. I strive to inspire my students to come up with their own research question and find some data sources to explore it more deeply. At the end of the course, they develop a research proposal and present it to class to receive feedback.
WHAT ARE THE FIVE MOST SALIENT MATERIALS FROM YOUR COURSE, AND WHY IS EACH IMPORTANT?
Rodrik, Dani. (2013). “The Past, Present, and Future of Economic Growth,” Global Citizen Foundation Working Paper, June.
Duflo, Esther. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, 50 (4): 1051-79.
Alesina Alberto, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn. (2013). “On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(2):469-530.
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo. (2008) “The Experimental Approach to Development,” NBER Working Paper No. 14467.
Rodrik, Dani. (2008). “The New Development Economics: We shall experiment, but how shall we learn?,” Harvard Kennedy School.
I also recommend the following books as an introduction to policy debates and as a survey of several important topics:
Ocampo, José Antonio, Codrina Rada and Lance Taylor, Growth and Policy in Developing Countries: A Structuralist Approach, New York, Columbia University Press, 2009.
Rodrik, Dani and Mark R. Rosenzweig (eds.) Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 5, Oxford and Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2010.
WHAT IS A DREAM COURSE THAT YOU’D BE INTERESTING IN TEACHING IN THE FUTURE?
This course is my dream course, and I keep updating it with more recent articles every semester I teach it.
WHAT IS A BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE AS A HIGH SCHOOLER?
WHAT IS A PIECE OF ADVICE THAT YOU’D GIVE TO NEW TEACHERS?
I encourage them to follow online webinars in development economics and ask students to follow them. This one, for example, is completely free and features some great contemporary development economists:https://vdevecon.wixsite.com/website.
I think these can be a great tool to engage students further in several interesting topics of research.