ECON 380 - Economics of Culture and Development

Credits: 3

Prerequisite: ECON 203. Economists have long been interested in understanding the sources of (under) development. Topics include labor coercion, corruption, health, education, and many more. As reliable micro-level data has become increasingly available from developing countries, our understanding of the process of development has evolved accordingly. Students gain familiarity with those datasets and the recent empirical papers utilizing them. While our approach is grounded in economic theory and empirical findings, one of our goals is to contextualize economic development. That is, development or under-development does not happen in vacuum. The roots of economic well-being of a country can be traced to its history, culture, and geography. The course, therefore, combines topics from economics of culture as it relates to development economics.