Overview

The field of International Development addresses one of the greatest and most difficult current challenges faced by humanity: how to assist the 80% of the world population located in less-developed countries, and in particular the three billion individuals in poverty, raise their living standards while at the same time preserving the quality of their environments?

Among the world poor, nearly 70% are rural and agriculture and natural resources play an important role in their livelihoods. As a consequence, there is much demand for the contributions of economists and agricultural economists in helping to devise and implement solutions. We prepare students to address these issues through research, teaching, project development, and policy advice.

Issues Addressed

The field covers a wide range of problems. Indeed, the breadth of concerns and their inter-relatedness is one of its characteristics compared to other domains of economic analysis.

• The determinants of economic growth
• The definition of country-specific development strategies in the context of globalization
• The role of agriculture in economic development
• Technological and institutional innovations
• The political economy of policy-making
• Poverty and inequality
• Health and education
• Household livelihood strategies
• Community development and local forms of governance
• Environmental sustainability and conservation
• Cultural norms and institutions
• Issues specific to gender and ethnicity.

Approaches

To achieve its goals, the field pursues a variety of approaches. Rigorous economic modeling and use of advanced econometric techniques are essential to ensure the highest quality in research. For this reason, much of the teaching is oriented at providing students with these skills. In-depth knowledge of selected areas, inter-disciplinary work, and fieldwork are also needed to address the specificity of particular situations.

Joint Offering with the Department of Economics

The development field is fully integrated with the Economics Department, with courses and seminars jointly offered by the two departments. By nature, it calls upon a wide range of disciplines for which students can take full advantage of the tremendous wealth of expertise available at U.C. Berkeley, one of the most cosmopolitan campus in the nation. International and Area Studies and the numerous Area Centers on the Berkeley campus offer unique resources that complement what the academic departments offer to students in the field.

Student Career Paths

Reflecting the policy importance of the subject, the faculty is dedicated not only to academic pursuits, but also to policy and program advice to foreign governments, development agencies, non-governmental organizations. Similarly, some students prepare to pursue academic careers, while others prefer to work closer to policy makers and projects managers, finding employment in international development agencies and in the private and non-profit sectors.

Courses

Courses in international development are jointly offered by the ARE and Economics Departments. They consist of a one-year sequence usually taken in the second year of the program.

The Fall semester course (ARE 251, Econ 270A) focuses on the microeconomics of development. It is under the responsibility of Professors Ligon and Sadoulet.

The Spring semester (ARE 252, Econ 270B) focuses on development programs and development strategies. It is under the responsibility of Professors Miguel and Finan.

The Development Seminar

ARE and the Economics Department jointly host a weekly Development Seminar open to anyone on campus who is interested in attending. This is a forum for students to see the work of faculty from the UC Berkeley campus and from universities across the world, and for advanced graduate students to present work to a broader audience.

The Development Lunch

ARE and the Economics department jointly sponsor a development lunch, open to all students with interest in the subject from the two departments and the faculty associated with the field. It is held weekly for students to present their current works on development economics.

The Development Field Workshop

Weekly workshops are held for students working on their dissertations with development faculty in ARE, where students rotate in presenting their current research. This allows faculty to collectively advise students, and students to cooperate in helping each others in their research.

The Development Field Exam

The field examination in Development is taken upon completing the development courses. It is a three hour written examination that takes a broad perspective on issues in and recent contributions to the field. A reading list is issued in advance to help students prepare for the examination.

Sample Current Research Projects

The Deepening of Financial Services for the Rural Poor in Latin America
Information sharing and Credit Bureau for microfinance institutions
Promoting savings among microfinance clients

Risk and Consumption Smoothing
Methods for consumption smoothing over idiosyncratic shocks

Other Research Projects

Education programs
Education programs for the rural poor, Mexico and Brazil

Deforestation
Payments for environmental services in the Mexican ejido

Poverty Mapping
Econometric techniques for deriving more detailed poverty profiles around the world
(Research project continuing at the World Bank)

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Recent Dissertations

• Jill Luoto. 2010. (Advisor: Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Information and Persuasion: Achieving Safe Water Behaviors in Kenya
  
  
• Shanthi Nataraj. 2010. (Advisor: Ann Harrison)
  The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Productivity and Firm Size: Evidence from India's Formal and Informal Manufacturing Sectors
  
  
• Clair Null. 2009. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  Donors' Decisions and Dirty Drinking Water: Three Essays on Development Economics
  
  
• Peter Kelly. 2009. (Advisor: Alain de Janvry)
  Farmland Reforestation in China
  
  
• Robert Santillano. 2009. (Advisor: Ann Harrison)
  Essays on Immigrant Students in Public Schools - Evidence from North Carolina
  
  
• Jenny Aker. 2008. (Advisor: Max Auffhammer)
  Three Essays on Markets and Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa
  
  
• Celine Ferre. 2008. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Three Essays in Development Economics
  
  
• James Manley. 2008. (Advisor: Peter Berck)
  Clinics, Stoves and Ill-behaved Children: Essays in Health and Development Economics
  
  
• Sarah Baird. 2007. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  Three Seemingly Unrelated Essays in Development Economics
  
  
• Xiangyi (Daniel) Meng. 2007. (Advisors: Ethan Ligon)
  Essays on China's Economic Development
  
  
• Frederico Finan. 2006. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet).
  Political Corruption
  
  
• Manisha Shah. 2006. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  Risk Behavior, Occupational Choice, and Regulation of Sex Workers: Evidence from Mexico and Ecuador
  
  
• Ruth Uwaifo-Oyere. 2006. (Advisor: Brian Wright)
  Geopolitical, time and cohort differences in returns to education: the Nigerian story
  
  
  
• Tomoki Fujii. 2005.
  Three essay on poverty mapping and targeting.
  
  
• Tania Barham . 2005. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet) Providing a Healthier Start to Life: The Impact of Managed Care and Conditional Cash Transfers on the Health of Low Income Children
  Making Babies Healthier by Providing a Managed Care Option to California's Poor (May 2003)
  Providing a Healthier Start to Life: The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Infant Mortality (January2005)
  The Impact of the Mexican Conditional Cash Transfers on Vaccination Rates (May 2005)
  
  
• Laura Schechter. 2005. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  Trust, Trustworthiness, and Risk in Rural Paraguay.
  
  
• Jennifer Alix-Garcia. 2005. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet). A Tale of Two Communities
  Seeing the Forest and the Trees: A Spatial Analysis of Common Property Deforestation
  A Tale of Two Communities: Explaining Deforestation in Mexico
  Payments for Environmental Services: To whom, for what and how much?
  
  
• Fang Lai. 2005. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  The Impact of School Quality and Peer Influence on Educational Outcome-Insights from Middle School Education of Beijing's Eastern City District
  
  
• Karen Macours. 2003. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet) Matching in the land rental market: causes and consequences for access to land in Latin America
  Insecurity of Property Rights and Matching in the Tenancy Market (May 2003)
  Comparing a Direct with an Indirect Approach to Collecting Household Level Data: Who tells the truth? (June 2003)
  Ethnic Divisions, Interlinkages and Search Costs in the Guatemalan Land Rental Market (Sept 2003)
  
  
• Diana Clark Rodriguez . 2003. (Advisor: Jeff Perloff).
  Evaluating the effects of social programs.
  
  
• Caridad Araujo. 2003. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet) The role of the local context and non-agricultural employment on poverty reduction: micro and macro evidence from rural Mexico.
  Participation in off-farm employment in rural Mexico: the role of individual attributes, the local context, and social networks
  Spatial patterns of non-agricultural employment growth in rural Mexico during the 90s
  Non-agricultural employment growth and rural poverty reduction in Mexico during the 90s
  
  
  
• Craig McIntosh. 2003. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet) Impact Analysis in Microfinance.
  Estimating Treatment Effects from Spatial Policy Experiments: An Application to Ugandan Microfinance
  The Use of Two Control Groups in Quasi-Experimental Program Evaluation
  Investment, Inequality, and Risk in a Closed, Poor Economy
  
  
  
• Renos Vakis. 2002. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet) The impact of market failures on household behavior: explaining labor market segmentation, technology adoption patterns and transaction costs in rural Peru.
  Searching for failures in the Peruvian labor market via mixture models.
  Transactions costs and the role of bargaining and information: Evidence from Peru.
  Overcoming credit market failures: A paradigm of diversification for technology adoption in Peru.
  
  
• Minnie Ames. 2002. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Paul Gertler)
  "Three Essays on Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Indonesia"
  
  
• Nalinee Sangrujee. 2001. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  In sickness or in health: Risk of infant mortality and the demand for immunization.
  
  
• Camille Antinori. "Vertical Integration in Mexican Common Property Forests". (Advisor: Gordon Rausser)
  Contractual Hazards and Vertical Integration in Mexico's Community Forestry Sector (with Gordon Rausser)
  
  
• Carlos Muñoz-Piña. 2001. (Advisor: Alain de Janvry)
  Recrafting rights over common property resources in Mexico: Divide, incorporate, and equalize.
  
  
• Ming Chen. 2001.
  Development and the Environment.
  
  
• Erin McCormick. 2001. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Reducing Poverty in the Andes with genetically improved potato varieties: The importance of knowledge and risk.
  
  
• Melanie Raymond. 2001. (Advisor: Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Schooling and migration in rural Mexico.
  
  
• Norman Offstein. 2001. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  The behavior of a Guerrilla movement.
  
  
• Markus Goldstein. 2000. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Intra-household allocation and farming in Southern Ghana.
  
  
• Tamara Fox. 2000. (Advisor: David Zilberman)
  Stated and revealed preferences for fertility regulation in Tanzania.
  
  
• Lipper, Leslie. 1999. (Advisor: David Zilberman)
  The logic of Swidden : poverty and environmental determinants of household farming system choice.
  
  
• Narain, Urvashi. 1998. (Advisor: Ethan Ligon)
  Essays on common property resources with applications to forestry and global warming.
  
  
• Edmonds, Christopher. 1998. (Advisor Alain de Janvry)
  Policy regimes, agrarian institutions, and the performance of smallholder agriculture in Chile : three essays analyzing longitudinal survey data on Chilean peasant farms.
  
  
• Murgai, Rinku. 1997. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Localized reciprocity, self-insurance, and agricultural productivity in South Asia.
  
  
• Davis, Benjamin. 1997. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Economic reform and the determinants of income among agricultural households in Mexico and Nicaragua.
  
  
• Key, Nigel. 1997. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Modeling and estimating agricultural household behavior under imperfect markets.
  
  
• Warning, Matthew. 1997. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Three essays in economic development : village intermediaries, rural labor, and income mobility.
  
  
• Hart, Tracy. 1997. (Advisor: David Zilberman)
  Spatially efficient management of a sea water intruded aquifer.
  
  
• Leonard, Kenneth. 1997. (Advisor: Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Contractural structure of health care in rural Cameroun.
  
  
• Winters, Paul. 1996. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Three essays in economic development : migration networks, village-level risk sharing, and agriculture in development.
  
  
• Carletto, Calogero. 1996. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Non-traditional agro-exports among smallholders in Guatemala.
  
  
• Brière, Bénédicte de la. 1996. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Household behavior towards soil conservation and remittances in the Dominican Sierra.
  
  
• McCarthy, Nancy. 1996. (Advisors: Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet)
  Common property and cooperation in rural Mexico.

Faculty

ARE Faculty

	Irma Adelman Fields: Income distribution, poverty, and economic development; Interactions between economic and social systems in economic development.
	Alain de Janvry Fields: Regional development and rural development; Land markets and land reform; Common property resource management.
	Ethan Ligon Fields: Mutual insurance in village economies; Common property resources; Agricultural contracts.
	Jeremy Magruder Fields:Empirical analysesof labor markets; Unemployment; Health issues in developing countries.
	David Roland-Holst Fields: Development; Energy; Environment and climate change; Trade; Food and Agricultural Policy.
	Elisabeth Sadoulet Fields: Educational programs and impact analysis; Payment for environmental services; Microfinance institutions.

Economics Faculty

• Pranab Bardhan
• Frederico Finan
• Ted Miguel

Haas Business School Faculty

• Paul Gertler
• David Levine

Past Student Placements

2012	Jing Cai	Assistant Professor	Department of Economics	University of Michigan
2012	Fei Han	The Economist Program	International Monetary Fund
2012	Gianmarco Leon	Assistant Professor	Department of Economics	University of Pompeu Fabra
2012	Charles Seguin	Assistant Professor	Department of Economics	L'Université du Québec à Montréal
2012	Alex Solis	Assistant Professor	Department of Economics	Uppsala University
2011	Rosangela Bando	Economist	Inter American Dev Bank (IADB)
2011	Ben Crost	Assistant Professor		University of Colorado
2011	Alan Fuchs	Research Economist	Human Development Report Office	UNDP
2011	Erick Gong	Assistant Professor		Middlebury College
2011	Santiago Guerrero	Researcher	Central Bank of Mexico
2011	Melissa Hidrobo	Postdoctoral Fellow	International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
2011	Jenny Ifft	Research Economist	ERS Resource and rural Economics Division	USDA
2011	Kelly Jones	Postdoctoral Fellow	International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
2011	Peter Kelly	Assistant Professor	School of Economics	Renmin University of China
2011	Fangwen Lu	Assistant Professor		Renmin University of China
2011	Elizaveta Perova	Extended Term Consultant	World Bank
2011	Lourdes Rodriguez-Chamussy	Lecturer	Economics Department	George Washington University
2011	Abdoulaye Sy	Young Professionals Program	World Bank
2011	Quoc Viet	Founder and President	Golden Bridge Inc.
2010	Jill Luoto	Associate Economist	RAND	N/A
2010	Shanthi Nataraj	Associate Economist	RAND	N/A
2009	Maoyong Fan	Assistant Professor	Miller College of Business	Ball State University
2009	Clair Null	Assistant Professor	Rollins School of Public Health	Emory University
2009	Rocio Titiunik	Assistant Professor	Department of Political Science	University of Michigan
2008	Jenny Aker	Assistant Professor	Fletcher School	Tufts University
2008	Céline Ferré	Economist (Young Professional)	Human Development in South Asia	The World Bank
2008	James Manley	Assistant Professor	Department of Economics	Towson University
2007	Sarah Baird	Postdoctoral Scholar	Center on Pacific Economies	University of California, San Diego
2007	Xiangyi (Daniel) Meng	Assistant Professor	School of Public Finance and Public Policy	Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
2006	Frederico Finan	Assistant Professor	Economics	UCLA
2006	Claudio Ferraz	Research Economist		Instituto de Pesquisa Economica Aplicada (IPEA), Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
2006	Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere	Assistant Professor	Economics	Georgia Institute of Technology, GATECH
2006	Manisha Shah	Assistant Professor	Economics	University of Melbourne
2005	Jennifer Alix	Assistant Professor	Economics	University of Montana, Missoula
2005	Tania Barham	Assistant Professor	Institute of Behavioral Science/Department of Economics	University of Colorado, Boulder
2005	Fang Lai	Assistant Professor	Education	New York University
2005	Laura Schechter	Assistant Professor	Agricultural and Applied Economics	University of Wisconsin, Madison
2003	Karen Macours	Assistant Professor	Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies	Johns Hopkins University
2003	Craig McIntosh	Assistant Professor	International Relations & Pacific Studies	University of California, San Diego
2003	Caridad Araujo	Visiting Assistant Professor/Consultant	Public Policy Institute/Development Economics Research Group	Georgetown University/World Bank