General Information:

Instructors
Esther Duflo (eduflo@mit.edu)

Sara Lowes (slowes@mit.edu)

TAs:

Salome Aguilar (saloagui@mit.edu)
Mikey Jarrell (mikeyj@mit.edu)

Class time:
Lectures MW 1:00-2:30 (E51-376)

Recitation times:
F 12:00-1:00 (E51-145) [advanced topics] F 1:00-2:00 (E51-145) [metrics]

Course Description

In this class, we will study some of the key theoretical and empirical ideas for why and how politics and institutions affect economic development. We will also look at various empirical examples drawn from the developing world.

We have three basic goals for this class:
• Building a foundation for critical thinking about the role of political economy in understanding economic development. We intend to have vigorous class discussions to encourage this.
• Understanding some core theoretical concepts in political economy, with illustrations from developing countries whenever possible.
• Understanding empirical evidence in economics. What makes a good empirical study? How do we learn about the world empirically? What are some of the techniques we can use to better understand the world?