Introduction and Overview

EC 390 - Development Economics

Jose Rojas-Fallas

2025

Preamble

Welcome to EC 390!

My name is Jose Rojas-Fallas, 5th Year PhD Candidate in Economics

Please visit my website to learn more about me and my work!

  • The traffic would also be great for me

I am a international trade, development, and microeconomist

I am originally from Costa Rica

I am going to make this class fun for us both

What Are We Getting Out of This Course

  • Credit!

  • Knowledge on fundamental theories and concepts in development economics

  • An understanding on what makes countries grow at different rates

  • Practical skills on how to do basic research and talk about it

  • A different worldview!

Now let’s talk about the course details

Syllabus

Class Information

  • Lectures Monday & Wednesday in Gerlinger 302

  • Office Hours Tuesdays from 09:00 am to 11:00 am

Lectures

  • Slides are only one part of the course, not a perfect substitute
  • During lectures, I will go through example problems, ask you to solve things, ask for your opinions, etc.
    • It will be somewhat interactive, keeping you on your toes and allowing you to push back on things I say
  • By being in lecture (and paying attention), my goal is to make things clearer beyond what the textbook and bring it into the real world

Logistics

  • Our textbook is Economic Development by M. Todaro and S. Smith

    • I recommend you check the Readings to keep on track

Course Topics

  • Growth & Development
  • Theories of Growth & Development
  • Poverty & Inequality
  • Agriculture & Rural Development
  • Population
  • Urbanization & Rural-Urban Migration
  • Education & Health
  • Governance & Institutions
  • Foreign Aid
  • Trade & Globalization

Course Grades

  • 20% 4x Problem Sets
  • 10% 4x Quizzes
  • 30% Midterm Exam
  • 50% Final Project

Canvas & Course Set-Up

Canvas will be a place for you to submit assignments and as a gradebook

Everything else will be in our course website




Course Website

This is a link! It works!

Assignments

Problem Sets

  • Will be made available one week before they are due (usually on Wednesday)
  • Due at 11:59am (before lecture) but you can submit late up until 11:59pm of that day
  • There will be a late submission penalty which is proportional to how many hours late it was submitted

Submissions

  • Only PDF files are accepted
  • If you write your answers with pen and take pictures/scan them, compile them into a single PDF file
    • Make sure they are legible
    • You can do this by using any website that merges pdf files (be sure they are in the proper order) Adobe works just fine

Assignments

Quizzes

  • These are intended to test your critical thinking and develop your ability to form coherent and succint arguments

  • They will have a 45min time limit

  • Submissions should be no more than a paragraph or two in length

Example from my International Econ class:

In lecture, we briefly talked about how the median voter model does not work well when considering trade policy. Voters seemingly support protectionist trade policies, even when they may go against their direct interests. Why do you think this happens?

Midterm Exam

  • The midterm exam is scheduled for Wednesday of Week 5 (October 29th)
  • It will consist of multiple choice questions, short-answer questions, and multi-part analysis questions
  • I’ll do my best to create a practice exam beforehand but no promises

Final Project

You will come up with a research proposal on any topic related to development economics

  • You will NOT be writing a full research paper
  • You will identify a specific question
  • You will motivate why it is an important question
  • You will propose some form of answering it using theory, data, or policy analysis
  • You will create a 10min presentation on your work

Final Project

I will give more details as we move along the term but here is the rough outline:

Week 02

Week 06

Week 08

Week 10

Final Project

I will give more details as we move along the term but here is the rough outline:


Week 02 Topic Selection:

  • Submit a brief (1-2 paragraph) description of your proposed research question, including why you believe it is important to answer and why it is relevant to development economics

Week 06

Week 08

Week 10

Final Project

I will give more details as we move along the term but here is the rough outline:

Week 02 Topic Selection

Week 06 Annotated Bibliography

  • Provide at least THREE peer-reviewed articles related to your topic, with a breif summary (about 1-2 paragraphs) of how it informs your own question

Week 08

Week 10

Final Project

I will give more details as we move along the term but here is the rough outline:

Week 02 Topic Selection

Week 06 Annotated Bibliography

Week 08 Presentation Outline

  • Submit a draft outline/rough draft of your presentation slides in which you summarize your question, motivation, and proposed approach to answer it

Week 10

Final Project

I will give more details as we move along the term but here is the rough outline:

Week 02 Topic Selection

Week 06 Annotated Bibliography

Week 08 Presentation Outline

Week 10 Final Presentation

  • Deliver a 10-minute presentation of your research project

This has a caveat

Final Project Caveat

  • I have allocated the entirety of Week 10 for presentations, but that only allows us 240min which equals only 24 presentations

  • Because of this, I will allow you to submit a recording of your presentation instead

  • By Week 04, I will ask for volunteers to present in-class

    • This will be first-come, first-serve

  • Volunteers will receive Extra Credit for doing so, however there is a second caveat

  • If you do sign up to present, that is a commitment you are making with me you CANNOT back out of it

    • If you fail to present in person, you will be punished in your grade for doing so

Development Economics Overview

What is Development Econ?

My Dev Econ professor made it very easy to understand with the following:

In OECD Countries

  • Labor Economics
  • Health Economics
  • Public Economics
  • Environmental Economics
  • Household Economics
  • Industrial Organization
  • Urban Economics
  • Behavioral Economics

In Developing Countries

  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Development Economics

Development Economics as a Field

What makes Development Different?

  • International setting
  • Very low socioeconomic status populations
  • Lots of constraints (financial, behavioral, market, institutional, etc.)
  • Little social protection
  • Missing markets (financial, product, land)
  • Presence of strong non-market institutions (social networks, informal markets)
  • Monopolistic markets (no “perfect competition” assumptions)
  • Institutional setting is widely diverse, varying from country to country

Development Economics as a Field

What makes Development Similar?

  • Policy concerns welfare, environment, institutional quality, etc.
  • Econometric tools
  • Attention to causal mechanisms

Development Economics as a Field

Consequences

  • Presence of market imperfections and constraints attention to theory

    • What is the “model” we should think of?

  • Different institutional setting Nuanced understanding of local context

  • Low-income countries Sparse data availability

  • Not US, so who cares? Target questions with wider appeal than country context

Now Let’s Play a Game

Activity Groups

Game Set-Up

There are 10 countries made up of 8 members each

  • Each country is tasked with producing as much as they possibly can
  • Each country is given an envelope with resources to produce paper shapes
  • Each shape has its own value and are “sold” in the market for a wealth transfer (This will happen outside of class)

Instructions

  • No outside materials may be used

  • Each shape must be of EXACT length/width/height as the instructions indicate

  • Each shape MUST BE CUT WITH SCISSORS

  • Failure to meet quality standards set above will result in the shape being discarded


Note: Shapes with distruted stickers are worth more!