Population, Environment and Governance

The first meeting is devoted to constructing jointly the list of topics to be studied in the course, as well as to the critical discussion of micro-theoretical modeling in development economics. On the basis of the list/structure of topics, the instructor will provide the articles that will be presented and discussed during the course (to be posted on the website of the course).

By the second meeting, the students form small groups and decide on the papers that they will present in the three presentation sessions.

A key element of the course is helping students to improve their skills of writing short policy papers (in clear, concise non-fiction English) – a skill considered as crucial in the future career of an MA graduate, but – unfortunately – under-developed during the university education. For this purpose, the next meeting is a 3-hour writing session, during which students draft (individually) a short policy paper on a given topic. Later, these essays will be analyzed and commented by the instructor. Then, the students will have the opportunity to re-write their papers, taking into account the comments/suggestions received.

The third and the fourth meetings are devoted to the critical discussion of natural/randomized experiments in development economics, and of research methods used in economic history and their importance for development economics.

Three meetings are devoted to student presentation of research papers on the topics agreed on the first day.

The rest of the course is devoted to the comments/suggestions for improvement of policy papers written by students, to discussions of some main rules of writing style in economics and to exercises aimed at improving the style.