SSE 504 Development
Economics
MA Economics, Monsoon Semester 2013
Course Instructor: Siba Sankar Mohanty
MA Economics, Monsoon Semester 2013
Course Instructor: Siba Sankar Mohanty
This syllabus is developed for first semester students in Masters degree
programme in Economics at School of Social Sciences, Doon University. The
purpose of this course is to acquaint students with the broad paradigms of
development economics as listed below.
Evaluation Process
The evaluation of progress of students shall be made as per the
distribution below
Written examinations : 80 marks (30 mid semester + 50 end semester)
Seminars and Class Performance: 5 marks
Assignments /Term Papers: 15 marks
Unit-1: Introduction- concept, history, schools of thought.
An Introduction to Economic Development, Growth Theories in the paradigm
of convergence and non-convergence, Harrod-Domar growth model, Solow Growth
model, technical progress, issues in convergence.
A broad discussion on the paradigms of non-convergence
History, expectations and development
State Market and Decentralization
Unit-2: Population and Development
Basic concepts, demographic transition, effects of population growth,
Rural Urban interaction, Lewis Model, Harris Todaro Model, Government Policies
Unit-3: Poverty and Inequality
Poverty-Concept and measurement, empirical observations, impact
Inequality: meaning and measurement of economic inequality,
Income inequality: Inverted U hypothesis, uneven and compensatory
changes, inequality and demand composition, inequality, capital market and
development, human capital and development
Unit-4: Agriculture-land, labor, credit, insurance and their
inter-linking.
Markets in Agriculture, land rental contracts and ownership, Principal
Agent theory and applications
Modeling labour issues, Analysis of credit markets, theory of perfect
insurance.
Assignments,
Seminars and Projects
The
Four Assignments through
the Semester are
i. Assignment-1:
Group Assignment (All Students in a group)
Revisiting empirics of
economic growth; Relevancy of exogenous growth models in contemporary world.
Reading: Mankiw, Gregory, David Romer and David
Weil (1992), "A Contribution to theEmpirics of Economic Growth", Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 107, 407-438.http://lokkatha.com/Files_For_Download/02%20Converge%20Mankiw&Romer&Weil-QJE1992.pdf
Task: The students are required to go through the
literature and on the basis of data available through World Development
Indicators (WDI-2012) study the relations. The outcomes of the exercise is to
be presented in a class seminar. (Knowledge of elementary econometrics such as
OLS required to complete the task) 4 Marks
ii. Assignment-2:
Individual Assignment
Demographic
Transitions: All the students are required to write the assignment in the form
of an article to be published onhttp://lokkatha.com
In this
assignment, students are to study the population data on one country and
prepare a write up on the demographic transition of that country. Each student
will have different countries to work on.
The task
would involve data mining, analysis and presentation skills through excel (or
any other spreadsheet) and some skills in graphics.
Data Source:
Student Collected
Sample Assignment
by Previous Year Students: Republic of China: A Demographic Profileby Pooja (MA
Economics, 2011 Batch)
iii. Assignment-3:
Individual Assignment
Inequality:
All the students are required to write the assignment in the form of an article
to be published on http://lokkatha.com
In this
assignment, students are to study the data on inequality in one Indian State
and prepare a write up on inequality of that state vis-à-vis the country. Each
student will have different states to work on.
The task
would involve data mining, analysis and presentation skills through excel (or
any other spreadsheet) and some skills in graphics.
Data Source:
NSSO
Sample Assignment
by Previous Year Students: Inequality: A Comparative Analysis ofIndia and Uttarakhand by Charu Kaur
(MA Economics, 2011 Batch)
iv. Assignment-4:
Group Assignment (4 groups with 2 students in a group)
This
assignment would involve a review of literature by 4 groups to be written and
presented by the group in class seminar. The broad topics are as under.
(a) Agricultural
Market in India
(b) Labour
issues in India
(c) Credit
Markets in Agriculture
(d) Land
Relations (Contracts / Ownerships) in India
TEXTBOOK:
Ray, Debraj (1998), Development Economics, Princeton University
Press
General Books Recommended
Mookherjee, Dilip and Debraj Ray (2000), Introduction to
Readings in the Theory of Economic Development, London: Blackwell.
Basu,
K. Analytical Development
Economics: The Less Developed Economy Revisited. (Cambridge: MIT Press)
Thirlwall, A.P. Growth, and Development with Special Reference to Developing Economies. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
Todaro, M.P. and S.C. Smith Economic Development. London: Pearson
Weeks, John R. (2005). Population. An Introduction to Concepts and Issues. 10th edition
Thirlwall, A.P. Growth, and Development with Special Reference to Developing Economies. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
Todaro, M.P. and S.C. Smith Economic Development. London: Pearson
Weeks, John R. (2005). Population. An Introduction to Concepts and Issues. 10th edition
No comments:
Post a Comment