EC 479 - Wealth and Poverty of Nations
Professor Jason Long

Contact Information:
Office: Diamond 347
Phone: 5243
Click to Email

Meeting Times:
Wednesday 1:00p.m. - 3:30p.m.

Classroom: Diamond 343

Office Hours:
Mon 9 - 11 am, Wed 3:30 - 5:30 pm


Course Syllabus
Spring 2008 Syllabus


Course Materials
There are five required texts for the course, all available at the bookstore. They are

The Lever of Riches, Joel Mokyr (Oxford University Press, 1992)
Rise of the Western World, Douglass North and Robert Paul Thomas (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto (Basic Books, 2000)
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond (W. W. Norton, 1999)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber (Dover Publications, 2003)


Course Outline and Reading List
Most of the online articles are available through JSTOR or the NBER's Web page. Following the link to each article, you will be given the option of reading the article on your computer, downloading it, or printing it. You will need to access the papers from a computer in the Colby network in order to be able to use JSTOR. Unmarked readings are from the required texts.

WEEK 2. Introduction: Why Should We Care?
Presentation: Economics and Happiness - Jennifer Jewett
Easterlin, R. “Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory” Economic Journal 111 (July 2001): 465-484.
Reading:
Landes, D. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, W. W. Norton, 1998. Introduction.
Easterlin, R. "The Worldwide Standard of Living Since 1800," Journal of Economic Perspectives 14 (Winter 2000): 7-26.
Offer, A. The Challenge of Affluence, Oxford University Press, 2006: Ch 2.
Easterlin, R. Growth Triumphant, University of Michigan Press, 1996. Ch 10.

WEEK 3. Technology and the Theory of Economic Growth
Presentation: Copying is Good: Convergence Theory - Angie Polanco
Abramovitz, M. “Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind,” Journal of Economic History 46 (June 1986): 384-406.
Baumol, W. “Productivity Growth, Convergence and Welfare: What the Long-Run Data Show.” American Economic Review 76 (December 1986): 1072-85.
Reading:
Mokyr, J. The Lever of Riches, Oxford University Press, 1992. Chs 1-6
Lecture: Growth Theory [refer to Mankiw, N. G. Macroeconomics Chs 7, 8.]

WEEK 4. Technology: The "Ultimate Proximate" Cause
Presentation: Computers...Big Deal? - Andrew Peterson
Gordon, R. J. "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 14 (Fall 2000): 49-74.
Reading:
Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Chs 7-12

WEEK 5. Institutions: "The Rules of the Game," a Deeper Determinant
Presentation (1): Path Dependence - Sam Fabens
David, P. “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY” American Economic Review 75 (May 1985): 332-337.
Liebowitz, S. and S. Margolis. “The Fable of the Keys” Journal of Law and Economics, 33 (Apr 1990): 1-25.
Presentation (2): The Maghribi Traders - JaeHee Yun
Greif, A. “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders” Journal of Economic History 49 (Dec 1989): 857-882.
Reading:
North, D. "Institutions," Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (Winter 1991): 97-112.
North, D. “Economic Performance Through Time” American Economic Review 84 (June 1994): 359-368.
Coase, R. “The Problem of Social Cost,” Journal of Law & Economics 3 (Oct 1960): 1-44.
Lecture: Institutions

WEEK 6. Institutions: The Rise of Europe
Presentation: The Case of England - Brian Lessels
North, D. and B. Weingast. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England” Journal of Economic History 49 (Dec 1989): 803-832.
Reading:
North, D. and R. P. Thomas. Rise of the Western World, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

WEEK 7. Institutions Outside Europe: A Very Different Story
Presentation: The Not-So-Wild West - Ryan Collins
Anderson, T. and P. J. Hill. “The Evolution of Property Rights: A Study of the American West” Journal of Law & Economics 18 (Apr 1975): 163-79.
Reading:
de Soto, H. The Mystery of Capital, Basic Books, 2000.

WEEK 8. Spring Break

WEEK 9. Geography: The Deepest Determinant
Presentation: The Very, Very Long Run - Robert Glotfelty
Steckel R. “Health and Nutrition in Pre-Columbian America: The Skeletal Evidence” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36 (Summer 2005): 1-32.
Steckel R. and J. Prince. “Tallest in the World: Native Americans of the Great Plains in the Nineteenth Century” American Economic Review 91 (Mar 2001): 287-94.
Reading:
Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: Ch 1, 4-14

WEEK 10. The Dragon in the Room
Presentation: Europe v. China - John Downing
Shiue, C. and W. Keller. “Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution” American Economic Review 97 (Sep 2007): 1189-1216.
Reading:
Jones, E. L. The European Miracle. Cambridge University Press, 1981: Ch 1, 2.
Pomeranz, K. The Great Divergence, Princeton University Press, 2000: Intro, Ch 1, 2, 5, 6
(This book is on reserve in the library. It's also available online through ebrary. Alternately, get a used copy for less than twenty bucks on Amazon.)

WEEK 11. Geography And, not Or, Institutions
Presentation (1): Colonization: Why Rich Was Bad - Leonardo Costa
Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson, and J. Robinson. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 2002): 1231-1294.
Presentation (2): Slavery: Why Flat Was Bad - Jonathan Godbout
Nunn, N. and D. Puga. “Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa,” working paper, 2007.
Reading:
Engerman, S. and K. Sokoloff. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies," NBER Working Paper 9259.
Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson, and J. A. Robinson. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation." American Economic Review 91 (December 2001): 1369-1401.
Jones, European Miracle. Chs 5, 6. (On reserve in library.)

WEEK 12. Culture: Here There be Monsters
Presentation: The Mystery of Islam - Michael Finnerty
Kuran, T. “Islam and Underdevelopment: An Old Puzzle Revisited,” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 153 (1997): 41-71.
Reading:
Weber, M. The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism.
Blum, U. and L. Dudley. “Religion and Economic Growth: Was Weber Right?” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 11 (2001): 207-230.

WEEK 13. Growth Empirics: What Do the Data Tell Us?
Presentation (1): Growth Regressions - Zachary Starr
Barro, R. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," Quarterly Journal of Economics (May 1991): 407-443.
Presentation (2): Culture’s Not So Bad…Just Run Some Regressions - Ishan Singh
Barro, R and R. McCleary. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," American Sociological Review 68 (2003): 760-781.
Reading:
Rodrik, D., A. Subramanian, and F. Trebbi. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth 9 (2004): 131-165.
Sachs, J. "Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income." NBER Working Paper 9490.
Sachs, J. "Institutions Matter, but Not for Everything" Finance and Development (June 2003): 38-41.
Nunn, N. “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (Feb 2008).

WEEK 14. Conclusion: So What Do We Think? And What’s To Be Done?
Presentation: One Growth Story - Tubotu Musumali
Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson, and J. Robinson. "An African Success Story: Botswana," in In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, Dani Rodrik, ed. Princeton University Press, 2003.
Reading:
Rodrik, D. "Growth Strategies," draft for Handbook of Economic Growth


Other Useful Links
Jason Long’s Home Page
Colby College Economics Department
Colby College
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Oxford English Dictionary
World Factbook 2000
Economic History Services
JSTOR – Journal Storage
Econlit – Economics literature search
ESPN.com






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