Advanced Development Economics

2022-23

Jean-Marie Baland jean-marie.baland@unamur.be

Guilhem Cassan guilhem.cassan@unamur.be

Catherine Guirkinger  catherine.guirkinger@unamur.be

This class is part of the Belgian Doctoral School in Economics, and is therefore also open to Phd students that would like to complement their training with an introduction to development research issues and approaches

The objective of the course is to familiarize students with applied microeconomic modelling on current development issues and common econometric techniques used in development economics. A particular emphasis will be put on the particularities of data coming from developing countries (LDC). Students will be introduced to the techniques and the approaches currently in use for active scientific research in development economics so as to fully appreciate the variety and the complementarity of these approaches.

Organization of the classes

The class will be introduced on the 9 of February at 9:30 by Guilhem Cassan, who will present the content of the particular theme chosen this year ‘the economics of media’. During that session, we will also discuss the organization of the class.

There will then be two online sessions of presentation. On the 9^th of March, the students will have to present a paper on the Economics of the Media.

These sessions will be followed by two classes taught by Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Marie Baland on the following themes: The conception and technique of household surveys, Models of household bargaining for developing countries, Missing women and Demographic imbalances and, The role of Gender norms.

These two classes will take place on March 16 and 23, 9:30. On March 30, 9:30, the students will present the ‘general’ paper they have chosen. All sessions have to be attended by all the students.

On April 27, 9:30, the students will present a first draft of their research projects in the class which will then be discussed by the Professors in charge.

Evaluation

The evaluation will be based on (1) a research essay, the definition of an empirical research project (what is the starting idea, how to test it, what type of data to use, and given the data, what types of biases can we expect?), and on (2) oral presentations of two papers made in the class, and a referee report on one the papers.

1. The research essay

The essay will be made in two steps. A first short report (max 2 pages) should be sent for the 20 of April to Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Marie Baland, detailing an empirical project, specifying a clear research question, an identification strategy and identifying a data set or a data collection strategy. These projects are presented in the class on April 27, and oral reactions are then be given (‘as if’ you were giving a research seminar!).

You will then prepare a full written version of your project, no longer than 5 pages, specifying the research question, the theoretical mechanism, backed by a short literature review, a description of the data sets (or a draft formulation of the questions you would add to a standard questionnaire as well as a sampling strategy), the identification strategy and a discussion of its weaknesses and the potential econometric problems you may face. This report should reach us before May 22.

2. The Presentations and the report

Each student will also make an oral presentation of a paper on the theme of ‘The economics of the media’ for the 9^th of March.

He will also prepare another presentation on a general paper in development economics, based on a set of slides, for the March 30 class. Each student selects in the two reading lists below two papers he would like to present, on a first come first serve basis. Each presentation should last about 15 minutes, followed by 5 to 10 minutes of questions and reactions by all the students and the professors. All students are required to attend all the presentations. The idea is to present the paper as if you were one of the author of the paper, in the style of a short seminar.

On top of this, you will be required to write a referee report of the ‘general’ paper you presented. This report should not exceed three pages.

1. You place the paper in the literature (why is this paper important?) and you assess its impact on the research that followed.
2. You evaluate the intrinsic qualities of the paper. This implies discussing the following aspects: question asked, structure of the model, main assumptions and main results. You should also indicate ways to improve the paper, and be critical about (1) its intrinsic consistency (assumptions, results, identification strategy, alternative or robustness tests that were not explored…) and (2) the relevance of its results (generalization, implications, changes in our way of thinking about an issue,…). In doing so, your comments have to be made ‘within’ the model, ‘within’ the paper. This implies that you cannot criticize a paper because its assumptions are not ‘realistic’ for instance, or because it does not integrate some important feature. The importance of a feature can only be judged with respect to the results and their generalization. For an empirical paper, you generally have to stick to the data source available to the authors, and assess whether they used the best approach given the data.

Reading list of papers on the ‘Economics of the media’

Della Vigna and Kaplan, 2007. The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting. Quarterly Journal of Economics

Drago, Nannicini and Sobbrio, 2014. Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

Gentzkow, Shapiro and Sinkinson, 2011. The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics. American Economic Review.

Eliana la Ferrara, with A. Chong and S. Duryea “Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2012.

Jensen, R. and Oster, E. (2009). The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(3):pp. 1057{1094

Zhuang, 2020. Intergovernmental Conflict and Censorship: Evidence from China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign. Working Paper

Reading list of general papers

Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, 2001, The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation, AER 91.

Alesina, Alberto, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn. 2013. “On the Origin of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (2): 469-530.

Anderson, Siwan Why dowry payments declined with modernization in Europe but are rising in India, Journal of Political Economy 111 (2), 269-310

Anderson Siwan and Garance Genicot, Suicides and Property Rights in India, Journal of Development Economics 114, pp. 64-78, 2015

Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin. “Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2 (May 2006): 635–672.

Jenn-Marie Baland, Isabelle Bonjean, Catherine Guirkinger and Roberta Ziparo: ‘The economic consequences of mutual help in extended families’, Journal of Development Economics, 2016, 38-56.

Jean-Marie Baland and Jim Robinson, ‘Land and Power, theory and evidence from Chile’, American Economic Review, 2008, 98 (5), 1737-66

Jean-Marie Baland and Jim Robinson, 2000, Is Child labour inefficient?, JPE, 108, 663-679

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman, 2016. “Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(2):811-870.

Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer, History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India, The American Economic Review, Vol. 95, No. 4 (Sep., 2005), pp. 1190-1213

Banerjee, A., D. Mookherjee, K. Munshi and D. Ray, 2001, Inequality, Control Rights and Efficiency: A Study of Sugar Cooperatives in Western Maharashtra, Journal of Political Economy, 109, 138-90. 

Besley, Coate and Loury, 1993, The economics of rotating savings and credit associations, AER, 83, 792-810

Bustos, Paula, B. Caprettini and J. Ponticelli. Agricultural Productivity and Structural Transformation. Evidence from Brazil, American Economic Review, 106 (6), 2016, 1320-1365.

de Janvry, Alain, Kyle Emerick, Gonzalez- Navarro Marcos, and Elisabeth Sadoulet 2015. “Delinking land rights from land use: Certification and migration in Mexico”, American Economic Review, 105(10).

Dell, M. The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita, Econometrica, 78(6) 2010

Duflo, E., 2001, Schooling and labor market consequences of school construction in Indonesia: evidence from an unusual policy experiment, AER, 91, 795-813

Duflo, E. and R. Pande, Dams, Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2007; 122 (2): 601-646

Duflo E. and R Chattopadhyay Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomized policy experiment in India, Econometrica 72 (5), 1409-1443

Field, Erica, Entitled to Work: Urban Tenure Security and the Labor Supply in Peru, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2007, 4(122): 1561-1602.

Galiani, Sebastian, Paul Gertler, and Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2005. “Water for Life: The impact of the privatization of water services on child mortality”, Journal of Political Economy, 113(1): 83-120.

Jayachandran Seema and Rohini Pande, Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference, American Economic Review, vol 107(9), September 2017, pp. 2600-2629.

Jayachandran Seema and I Kuziemko Why Do Mothers Breastfeed Girls Less Than Boys: Evidence and Implications for Child Health in India Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2011, vol. 126 (3), pp. 1485-1538.

Eliana la Ferrara, "Kin Groups and Reciprocity: A Model of Credit Transactions in Ghana", American Economic Review, 2003

Lowes, S., N. Nunn, J. Robinson, J. Weigel, The Evolution of Culture and Institutions: Evidence from the Kuba Kingdom, Econometrica, 85(4), 2017

Mayoral Laura and Debraj Ray, Groups in Conflict: Private and Public Prizes, revised November 2020. Mimeo (on Ray’s webpage).

Michalopoulos, S. and E. Papaioannou, Pre-colonial ethnic institutions and contemporary African development, Econometrica, 81(1), 2013

Murphy, Shleifer and Vishny, 1989, Industrialization and the Big Push, JPE, 97, 1003-102

Olken Ben, Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia
Journal of Political Economy 115 (2), pp. 200-249, April 2007.

Townsend Robert, 1994, Risk and insurance in village India, Econometrica, 62, 539-92