Development Economics (Audio)

Of all modern development theorists, he is the most influenced by Hayek.  His *Elusive Quest for Growth* is one of the best and most accessible books on economic development.

Some basic data on development, both across countries today and through time. We make use in this video of the excellent tool Gapminder made famous by Hans Rosling.

In order to make our material as widely available as possible the videos default to low...

Amid all the publicity and celebrity and hubbub, don't forget the value of his academic writings.  He's made contributions to numerous major fields in development, and on top of that integrated it with real world practice.

Fairly well into his career, he made a big swing away from theory and into development economics.  He has continued as a major spokesman for the world's poor.

A prescient economist who started a lot of the trends in current development work, including original data gathering and careful natural experiments.  He started off as an abstract monetary theorist and ended up measuring rice consumption in rural...

They're going to win their Nobel Prizes sooner than most people are expecting.  This video is quite short because most of our major coverage of their work appears elsewhere in this course, such as the sections on health and education.

Tough-minded and controversial, almost everyone found something to disagree with in his most famous book, The Bottom Billion.

I don't always agree with him, but his recent paper on productivity convergence is one of my current favorites, just brilliant.  He has revived the tradition of political economy in many areas of development economics and is always concise and to the...

He is the economist to read for the view that institutions, not geography, are of central importance in understanding prosperity.  Hat tip to James Robinson as well.

He was an important thinker on exchange rates, and explained why life was in some important ways cheaper in poor countries.