INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY:
Theory, methods, and case studies

GSPP C253 and ARE C253

Fall 2008

Goldman School of Public Policy
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
at the University of California at Berkeley

Instructors: Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet
Alain de Janvry: Giannini Hall 211, Friday 4:00-5:00 pm; alain@are.berkeley.edu
Elisabeth Sadoulet: Giannini Hall 213, Friday 4:00-5:00 pm; sadoulet@are.berkeley.edu 

Time: Friday, 10:00-12:00 pm, Location: 3105 Echevery
Prerequisites: Microeconomics and econometrics at the Master's level, or consent of instructors.

Announcements:

• Final exam is on Friday December 12, 9am-12pm, 105 GSPP. This is a closed book exam. Review questions
• Note regarding Friday November 21 class
Each of you is expected to be acquainted with the positions on foreign aid of the following three authors in the corresponding books:
Jeffrey Sachs. The End of Poverty
William Easterly. The White Man's Burden
Paul Collier. The Bottom Billion

However, you can study in greater detail the positions of one author of your choice. For your selected author, you will identify:
(1) The main normative arguments made by the author on foreign aid
(2) What you consider to be five points in support of the author's position
(3) What you consider to be five points in opposition to the author's position

• Note to the PP253/ARE253 class, re Friday October 3, 2008 Class: I will have to leave the classroom at 11.30 sharp to catch a flight. I propose that you use the last 30 minutes to have a discussion led by Jason on your next policy brief on the financial crisis. You could exchange information on:
  1. Terminology that you may not be sure of: subprime loans, derivatives, leverage, etc.
  2. Hypotheses to be addressed in your briefs regarding categories of impact on developing countries.
  I would hope that this will be a good investment in getting better informed for the policy brief.
  Alain

• Stata Review Session by Gianmarco Leon: Tuesday September 9, 5:30-7pm, 105 GSPP.
  Office hours by Gianmarco: Tuesdays September 16 and 23, 5:30-6:30pm, 234 Giannini Hall.

Syllabus 

Assigned Readings (periodically updated)

Calendar

Assignments:

We will not tolerate late assignments. We discount 20 percentage points for each day an assignment is late, ... so not much remains after very few days. You always have more than 2 weeks to do them, so don't procrastinate, and plan ahead of time if you have other assignments due in other classes.

• Policy Note #1 (due on September 12):
  The World Food Crisis: What can be done? Text of assignment
  Background papers: G8-HL-summit-paper.pdf ; Food-prices-Will-Martin.pdf
• Quantitative Policy Case #1: Poverty assessment for Mexico (due on September 26, in class)
  Text of assignment
  Household data (zip file in Stata 9 format) 
• Policy Note #2 (due on October 10):
  The unfolding financial crisis: What implications for the developing countries? Text of assignment 
• Quantitative Policy Case #2 (due on Friday October 31): Financial Crisis and Real Exchange Rate Analysis
  Text of assignment 
• Policy Note #3 (due on November 14): World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People.
  Text of assignment
  Background papers: WDR Overview, The Nuts and Bolts of Bolsa Familia.


• Quantitative Policy Case #3 (due on Friday December 5): Impact analysis of Progresa
  Text of assignment
  For those of you who had downloaded the data from last year, please note the data file this year is PPprogresa-08.dta. I have corrected some errors in the grade99 variable that were confusing to the students last year. Not that this does not happen in the real world of empirical analysis ... but it may be too much for you to have to deal with this in a homework. Good luck to everybody.
  data (zip file in Stata format)
  

Handouts

• Handout #1: "Concepts of Development: Criteria and Indicators"
• Handout #2: "Analysis of Poverty and Vulnerability"
• Handout #3: "Positive Analysis of Inequality: Indicators and Determinants"
• Handout #4: "Social Programs and the Art of Targeting"
• Handout #5: "Development and the Environment"
• Handout #6: "Trade, industrialization, and exchange rate policies"
• Handout #7: "Methods for Impact Analysis"

Final exam is on Friday December 12

Final exams from previous years

• Review questions (2003)
• Fall 2003 exam
• Review questions (2004)
• Fall 2004 exam
• Review questions (2006)
• Fall 2006 exam
• Review questions (2007)
• Fall 2007 exam

Last update: August 16, 2008