ECON 378
Long-Run Perspectives on Economic Growth Fall 2011 (also offered Spring 2012)
Division II Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
This is not the current course catalog

The world today is marred by vast inequities, with about a 30-fold difference in per capita incomes between the poorest country and the most affluent. What explanations do long-run growth economists have to offer for these differences in levels of prosperity? Are the explanations to be found in underlying differences between countries during the past few decades? The past few centuries? Or the past few millennia? If contemporary differences in living standards have origins that are hundreds or even thousands of years in the past, what scope exists for policies to reduce global inequality? Can we expect these inequalities to be reduced gradually over time through natural economic processes, or are they likely to persist unless action is taken to reduce them? This course will present a unified theory of economic growth for thinking about these and related questions. Examples of issues to be covered include, amongst other topics, Malthusian stagnation in pre-industrial societies, the importance of the demographic transition and human capital formation in the process of industrialization, the role of colonialism, slavery and ethnic fragmentation in shaping modern institutions, and the long-lasting effect of geography through its impact on the emergence of agriculture in early human societies.