Economic Development in Developing Countries

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Discipline Core	SPG2PP405	4

Semester and Year Offered: Semester 2 (Winter Semester)

Course Coordinator and Team: Partha Saha

Email of course coordinators: partha@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim: This course is aimed at developing an understanding of inter-linkages between growth, poverty and inequality and how one impacts the other in different contexts and how each of them individually as well as collectively impact the overall development paradigm in contemporary developing countries. Further, this course looks at different policy measures related to different dimensions of economic development and growth.

Course Outcomes:

Develop an understanding of challenges that inhibit inclusive growth and realize the importance of holistic approach to development as against piecemeal strategies.
Develop an idea about international databases and analytical skills in order to undertake cross-country studies in areas of poverty, inequality and growth.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

This course consists of five modules.

Module 1: Introductory Module – Two weeks

This module will introduce students to different concepts and pathways of economic development, and the role played by public policy in the development process under different contexts drawing upon experiences of different developing countries located in Latin America, East Asia and Africa in addition to India.

Module 2: Poverty – Three weeks

This module will begin with conceptual and measurement issues associated with poverty, followed by different dimensions of poverty, and finally will look into what kinds of policies have been successful in developing country context.

Module 3: Economic Growth – Three weeks

The central theme of this module will be to understand different characteristics of economic growth which are of concern to developing countries in particular continuity and stability of economic growth and distribution of growth and structural changes associated with growth. Different models of economic growth have contributed towards our understanding of the characteristics of economic growth mentioned above. Therefore, discussions around each of these characteristics will be based on specific growth model.

Module 4: Inequality – Three weeks

While resource generation is necessary for poverty reduction, it is by no means a sufficient condition. Even though economic growth makes it possible to achieve higher level of material welfare, for majority of population in developing nations, improvement in material welfare is crucially linked to distributional aspects of growth. An understanding of inequality and its relation with growth therefore becomes important to analyze the process of economic development in developing countries.

Module 5: Human Development – Three weeks

Human Development Index to measuring progress / development is an alternative to growth centric approach, and it takes into account a combination of economic and social factors in determining progress of a society. This approach has been universally adopted since the 1990s (promoted by United Nation Development Programme) and has been the cornerstone of economic and social policy design and implementation in the developing world. This module of this course will discuss Human Development in some detail (both conceptual and empirical) within the framework of capability approach and also provide a critique of this model and its limitations.

Assessment Details with weights:

There will be three assessments and details are mentioned below:

Assessment 1 (Empirical Exercise) – 30%

Take home assignment where conceptual clarity and measurement issues of poverty and inequality are assessed followed by broad implications of results obtained.

Assessment 2 (growth, inequality, poverty nexus) – 40%

Written exam on theories of growth, inequality, poverty, and the interlinkages between them will be the focus.

Assessment 3 (Human Development and Capability Approach) – 30%

Take home assessment where students work on a country or group of countries and prepare a Policy Report on Human Development approach to development (which will include construction of Policy Index, and discussions around different components of the index – impediments which these countries are facing in overall human development achievements vis-à-vis different components of the index).

Reading List:

Essential Readings

Atkinson, Anthony, B. (2015), “Inequality: What Can be Done?”, Harvard University Press, Harvard.
Banerjee, A., Duflo, E. (2007), “The Economic Lives of the Poor”, Journal of Economic Perspective, Vol. 21, No. 1.
Chaudhuri, P. (1989), “Economic Theory of Growth”, Harvester Wheatsheaf. [Chapters 1 to 6].
Cypher, J, M., Dietz, James L. (2009), “The Process of Economic Development”, Routledge. [Chapter 2].
Dutt, A, K. (2014), “Pathways to Economic Development”, OUP, New Delhi. [Chapters 1 & 6].
Mahajan, S, K. (2013). “Human Development Index – Measurements, Changes and Evolution”, Nirma University International Conference on Engineering.
Ravallion, Martin. (2001), “Growth Inequality and Poverty”, Policy Research Working Paper 2558, World Bank, Washington DC.
Piketty, Thomas. (2014), “Capital in the 21^st Century”, Harvard Business School Press India Ltd. [Chs 1 to 5].
Ravallion, M. (2016), “The Economics of Poverty”, Oxford University Press, [Chapters 4 & 5].
Roy, Debraj. (2014), “Development Economics”, Princeton University Press, Princeton. [Chapters 2, 6, 7].
Sen, K. (2023), “India’s economic development since independence”, WIDER Working Paper 2023/47
Yusuf, Arief, A., Zuzy, A., Komarulzaman, A., Sumner, A. (2023), “Will economic growth be sufficient to end global poverty”, WIDER Working Paper 2023/23.

Further Readings

Ravallion, M. (2001), “Growth, Inequality, and Poverty: Looking beyond Averages”, Policy Research Working Paper (2558), The World Bank.
Monitoring Global Poverty, The World Bank, 2017.
Rodrik, D. (2007), “One Economics, Many Recipes”, Prince University Press, Princeton, USA. [Chapters 1,3,5].
Sengupta, J. (2011), “Understanding Economic Growth: Modern Theory and Experience”, Springer. [ Chapters 1, 3, 8, 9].
UNDP. (2015), “Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development”, UNDP, New York [Chapters 1 and 3].