Development Economics (Audio)

Taxes can reduce trade but so can mountains! What do we learn about trade and growth by paying attention to geography? This video also contrasts the different theories of trade offered by David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Ricardo is in the textbooks but...

In this video we discuss the geographic distribution of diseases, both for humans and for crops, and the influence of these diseases on growth. We see the importance here of virtuous and vicious cycles in development.

Despite his vintage, the next generation of development economists will be mining him for a lot of fresh insights.  He would have loved the fact that much of Africa moved straight to cell phones.

This gives a very brief overview of what this section is about, and why it remains important to study the history of economic thought.

He started as an Austrian economist, and ended up believing in "The Big Push."  I'm still waiting for the biography.

Surplus labor remains an important idea in economic development, and he was the one who brought it back into economic theory.

He was mostly wrong I believe, but still an important and influential figure.  He saw the importance of commodity prices for economic development.

A now-neglected figure from the early years of neoclassical development economics.

One of the deepest and most underrated economic thinkers.  His work on "exit" vs. "voice" remains classic, but he also was a brilliant thinker on the unbalanced nature of economic development.

When I was quite young, I was lucky enough to meet him at a seminar at NYU.  He didn't mince words.  His critique of foreign aid resonates to this day.