Program Overview

Ec 140: Economic Progress

The course will investigate some of the theoretical, empirical, and historical literature on economic progress.

Course Description

This course will explore the reasons behind the disparity in wealth among societies, examining the theoretical, empirical, and historical aspects of economic progress.

Course Requirements

• The course will consist of roughly one part lectures to two parts class discussion of readings.
• On days scheduled for discussion, students are required to attend class and make reasoned, insightful comments.
• Students are also required to write a half-page summary of each paper listed for discussion and submit it via email.
• The article summaries should be more than a restatement of the abstract and should indicate how the paper fits in with the course.
• Students will be required to lead the discussion on one of the topics to be covered, preparing a handout on the topic and raising questions that will encourage discussion.

Evaluation

• Students will be graded on the basis of their participation in discussions, the two half-term exams, their summaries, and their performance as discussion leader.
• An equally weighted geometric mean (Cobb-Douglas production technology) of these normalized scores will be used as the basis for the course grade.

Schedule

1. Tuesday, September 26: Introduction
2. Thursday, September 28: Measuring growth and some history
3. Tuesday, October 3: Discussion
4. Thursday, October 5: Introduction to the theory of economic progress
5. Tuesday, October 10: The role and measurement of technological change
6. Thursday, October 12: More advanced theory of economic growth
7. Tuesday, October 17: Empirical tests and challenges to the theory
8. Thursday, October 19: The Industrial Revolution
9. Tuesday, October 24: Industrial Revolution
10. Thursday, October 26: Some difficulties
11. Tuesday, October 31: Growth and demographic change
12. Thursday, November 2: Endogenous growth theory models
13. Tuesday, November 7: Modeling the demographic transition
14. Thursday, November 9: Biology, culture, and growth
15. Tuesday, November 14: Politics, institutions, and growth
16. Thursday, November 16: History and Growth
17. Tuesday, November 21: More big obstacles to growth
18. Tuesday, November 28: Inequality
19. Thursday, November 30: Is growth slowing?

Further Reading

• Historical Perspectives on Growth
  • Robert C. Allen. 2003. Progress and Poverty in Early Modern Europe. Economic History Review 56: 403-443.
  • Robert C. Allen. 2001. The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War. Explorations in Economic History 38: 411-447.
• The Aggregate Production Function
  • Charles W. Cobb and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. A Theory of Production. American Economic Review 18: 139-165.
  • Herbert A. Simon and Ferdinand K. Levy. 1963. A Note on the Cobb-Douglas Function. Review of Economic Studies 30: 93-94.
• The Theoretical Classics
  • Roy F. Harrod. 1939. An Essay in Dynamic Theory. Economic Journal 49: 14-33.
  • Evsey D. Domar. 1946. Capital Expansion, Rate of Growth, and Employment. Econometrica 14: 137-147.
• Innovation
  • Robert M. Solow. 1957. Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function. Review of Economics and Statistics 39: 312-320.
  • Kenneth J. Arrow. 1962. The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing. Review of Economic Studies 29: 155-173.
• Evidence on convergence
  • Robert J. Barro. 1991. Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106: 407-443.
  • Robert J. Barro, Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, Olivier J. Blanchard, and Robert E. Hall. 1991. Convergence across States and Regions. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1991: 107-182.
• Econometric issues
  • Edward E. Leamer. 1985. Sensitivity Analyses Would Help. American Economic Review 75: 308-313.
  • Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin. 1997. I Just Ran Two Million Regressions. American Economic Review 87: 178-183.
• Politics and development
  • Seymour M. Lipset. 1959. Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review 53: 69-105.
  • Anne O. Krueger. 1974. The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society. American Economic Review 64: 291-303.
• Corruption and development
  • Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. 1993. Corruption. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108: 599-617.
  • Paolo Mauro. 1995. Corruption and Growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 110: 681-712.
• Natural Resources
  • W. M. Corden and J. P. Neary. 1982. Booming Sector and De-Industrialisation in a Small Open Economy. Economic Journal 92: 825-848.
  • W. M. Corden. 1984. Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation. Oxford Economic Papers 36: 359-380.
• Technology adoption
  • Stephen L. Parente and Edward C. Prescott. 1994. Barriers to Technology Adoption and Development. Journal of Political Economy 102: 298-321.
  • Stephen L. Parente and Edward C. Prescott. 1999. Monopoly Rights: A Barrier to Riches. American Economic Review 89: 1216-1233.
• Human capital
  • Anne O. Krueger. 1968. Factor Endowments and Per Capita Income Differences among Countries. Economic Journal 78: 641-659.
  • Kenneth J. Arrow. 1962. The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing. Review of Economic Studies 29: 155-173.
• Endogenous growth, increasing returns
  • Paul M. Romer. 1994. The Origins of Endogenous Growth. Journal of Economic Perspectives 8: 3-22.
  • Paul M. Romer. 1986. Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth. Journal of Political Economy 94: 1002-1037.
• Sustainability
  • Nancy L. Stokey. 1998. Are There Limits to Growth? International Economic Review 39: 1-31.
• More empirical work
  • Chrys Dougherty and Dale W. Jorgenson. 1996. International Comparisons of the Sources of Economic Growth. American Economic Review 86: 25-29.
  • Dale W. Jorgenson and Mieko Nishimizu. 1978. U.S. and Japanese Economic Growth, 1952-1974: An International Comparison. Economic Journal 88: 707-726.
• Geography and Growth
  • David E. Bloom, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Paul Collier, and Christopher Udry. 1998. Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1998: 207-295.
• Some control theory
  • Martin L. Weitzman. 2003. Income, Wealth, and the Maximum Principle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
  • David Cass. 1965. Optimum Growth in an Aggregative Model of Capital Accumulation. Review of Economic Studies 32: 233-240.
  • Peter A. Diamond. 1965. National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model. American Economic Review 55: 1126-1150.