TOPICS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS - 2021/2

Module Overview

The first half of the course will introduce students to modern theories of development economics, with special emphasis on the impact of credit market imperfections and other types of market failures. The second half of the course will focus on empirical evidence and studies on the impact of market failures, institutions, property rights, and civil conflict on long-run growth. For the second part of the course is fundamental that students are familiar with econometrics analysis of both cross section and panel data.

Module provider

Economics

Module Leader

JAIMOVICH Esteban (Economics)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

Students in Economics BSc programmes must have taken ECO3003 as a prerequisite. Students in the BSc in Politics and Economics programme must have taken ECO2051 (Intermediate Microeconomics 2) in their second year and ECO3003 (Time Series Econometrics) in Semester 1 of their third year as prerequisites for this Semester 2 module.

Module content

Indicative content includes:
-Coordination Failures and Technological Non-Convexities
-Poverty and Undernutrition
-Population Growth and Development
-Credit Market Imperfections and Poverty Traps
-Group Lending and Microcredit
-Institutions, Social Conflict, and Property Rights
-Randomised Control Trials

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the course. The mix between in-semester test (typically scheduled around week 5 or 6), and the final examination (scheduled weeks 13-15) is instrumental to this. Assessments will combine essay-style questions, problem-style questions and multiple choice questions. Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

Students are assessed by class test and final examination.
-A mid-term test worth 40% of final grade 
-A final examination consisting of long problems and essay questions. Worth 60% of the final trade. 

Module aims

• Make students aware of the modern theories of development and difficulty in sustaining long-run growth and helping social mobility.
• Prepare students to be able to assess development policies in the context of its economic evaluation.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to: make students aware of the fundamental difficulties hindering social mobility and long-run growth; assess the impact of poverty alleviation policies in the light of modern theories of development; be ready to further improve their knowledge in development economics upon further studies later on.

The learning and teaching methods include:
-Formal lectures (total 16 hours): 2 hour lecture per week x 8 weeks
-Tutorials (total 4 hours): 2 hour lecture per week x 2 weeks
-Revision lecture (total 2 hours): 2 hour lecture x 1 week

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ECO3058

Other information

n/a

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.