Subsections
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The course on “Development Economics: Theory, Policy and Practice” is designed to introduce the
students to (a) basic and alternative concepts, (b) theories and models and (c) measurements of
development, growth, poverty, inequality and institutions. This course aims to give students an
understanding of the causes, consequences, and patterns of growth and development; structural
features; and key debates in contemporary policy concerns with special reference to economies in
developing countries. The course intends to discuss the role of various institutions, the state and
governance in economic development.
- Concepts, dimensions and indicators
- Growth and development
- Characteristics of underdevelopment
- Measurements: Issues and challenges
- Rostow’s stages of growth
- Balanced growth and unbalanced growth
- Theories of Economic Growth: Harrod-Domar model, Solow growth model
- Endogenous Growth: Human capital, population, technological progress
- Vicious circle of poverty
- Measurement of poverty and inequality
- Inverted-U hypothesis
- Human Development Indices and Capabilities approach
- Inequality within household: Intra-household bargaining and unequal sharing
- Gender and development
- Poverty alleviation programmes
- Access to health and education
- Interrelation between health, education and productivity
- Government policies to improve health and education
- The Lewis Model
- The Harris–Todaro Model
- Formal and Informal Sector Debate
- Tenancy arrangements
- Forms of tenancy
- Risk, sharecropping and land ownership
- Labour markets in developing countries
- Skills and human capital
- Education, on the job training, and policy
- Rural savings and rural credit markets
- Informal credit markets: Theories of informal credit markets
- Micro finance: Concepts and Practice
- Insurance: perfect insurance model, asymmetric information, moral hazard
- Social security models
- Policy, governance, politics and development
- Formal and informal institutions
- Prosperity, geography, institutions
- Gains from trade
- Terms of trade
- Export promotion and import substitution
- Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James. 2013. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,
Prosperity and Poverty. London: Profile Books.
- Bardhan, Pranab. 2010. Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China
and India, New Delhi: OUP.
- Bardhan, Pranab. 2003. International Trade, Growth, and Development. London: Wiley–
Blackwell.
- Bardhan, Pranab. 2003. The Political Economy of Development in India: Expanded Edition.
New Delhi: OUP.
- Banerjee, Abhijit V. and Duflo, Esther. 2019. Good Economics for Hard Times. New Delhi:
Juggernaut Books.
- Banerjee, Abhijit V. and Duflo, Esther. 2011. Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty and the Way
to End it. New Delhi: Penguin Books.
- Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak, Bénabou, Roland and Mookherjee, Dilip. 2006. (Eds.).
Understanding Poverty, New York: OUP.
- Basu, Kaushik. 1997. Analytical Development Economics: The Less Developed Economy
Revisited. New York: MIT Press.
- Deaton, Angus. 2013. The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- North, Douglass C. 2002. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
Cambridge: CUP.
- Perkins, Dwight H., Radelet, Steven, Lindauer, David L., and Block, Steven A. 2012. Economics
of Development, New York: W.W. Norton.
- Ray, Debraj. 1998. Development Economics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- Rodrik, Dani. 2015. Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science, New
York: W.W. Norton.
- Rodrik, Dani. 2011. The Globalization Paradox. New York: Norton & Company.
- Sen, Amartya. 2000. Development as Freedom. New Delhi: OUP.
- Thirlwall, A. P. 2011. Economics of Development. London: Macmillan.
- Todaro, Michael P. and Smith, Stephen C. 2015. Economic Development. New York: Pearson.
*Pre-requisites: Intermediate microeconomics and macroeconomics.
