Kurs-Information

This course is designed for master’s students. It provides an overview of a selection of current topics in development economics and equips students with practical knowledge and skills to conduct empirical micro development economic research. The course starts with a motivation for why we care about development economics, discussing data on poverty and human development and the distribution of wealth across countries and within. It will then introduce practical skills for relevant empirical research methods including theoretical aspects of randomized controlled trials (RCT), the practical aspects and logistics of collecting data and implementing RCTs, common quasi-experimental designs used in development economics, and the importance of replications for internal and external validity of research. It then moves to discussing international and domestic migration and their relationship with climate change. At the end we will discuss social norms around gender and its impact on human development. The course will draw on recent peer-reviewed literature, books such as “Poor economics”, and materials from the United Nations, the World Bank or the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In tutorials we will work empirically and apply theoretical concepts to data using Stata.