Description

Most of what students have been studied so far in economics applies to Western countries’ economies with strong institutions and generally well-functioning markets, even if not perfect. Half of the world population lives with less than $6.85 per day, meaning less than 200€ per month (adjusted for 2017 purchasing power parities) while in France, the RSA (Active Solidarity Income) is 600€ per month.

This course focuses on this other half of the world, where institutions are weak, where markets are often deficient – with limited access to banks, to insurance, no secure property rights, and widespread informality. To understand the economic lives of poor people we need to rethink how to do economics. Relying on the books Poor Economics : a Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by A. Banerjee and E. Duflo (both winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day (Princeton University Press, 2009), and using our economics toolbox, we will study some paradoxical aspects of life below the poverty line, such as why the poor need to borrow in order to save, what barriers to start and grow business they face, why having many children does not necessarily make you poorer…

Compétences visées

This course is meant as an introduction to the field of development economics, which aims at understanding the economic forces at play in low and middle-income countries. After this class students will be able to understand and to have a critical view on development and poverty indicators —what is a poverty line? what are the mechanisms of a poverty trap? — and how, as economists,  they can gain a better understanding of the economics of the poor.

Disciplines

• Sciences économiques

Contacts

Responsable(s) de l'enseignement

• Marie Boltz