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Principles of Development Economics (B.Sc.)
The course introduces students to policies for supporting economic growth, sectoral transformation and economic integration, which are presented as the main areas of development policy and which are analysed from a theoretical as well as from an empirical perspective. The lecture starts with some basic definitions and makes the students familiar with a number of indicators that are brought into play to describe developing countries’ economic and social realities and to derive development policy goals. This section puts particular emphasis on discussing the international comparability of popular development indicators, such as per capita income or the Gini coefficient. The second chapter uses a theory-based approach to describe the preconditions and mechanisms suspect to be responsible for the empirical fact that some developing countries are stuck in poverty while others dynamically grow. Functional and personal income distribution as well as poverty and their interplay with economic growth is studied in chapter 3. We investigate whether growth is good for distribution and/or for the poor, and how policies directed towards reducing income inequality may affect economic growth. Chapter 4 focusses on developing countries’ development strategies, distinguishes between balanced and unbalanced approaches to sectoral transformation and discusses strategic options such as globalisation, protectionism and regional economic integration as well as different types of domestic reform. The instruments available to donor countries to support the socio-economic progress made by developing countries are shortly presented and analysed in chapter 5. Chapter 6 takes stock and offers a brief evidence-based discussion, whether and to which extent the living conditions in developing countries have improved over last six decades.

Since September 11, 2001, at the latest, the role of development policy changed from a rather marginal to a central field of foreign (economic) and security policy, which is also reflected in the doubling of the international funding for official development assistance between 1998 and 2005. The lecture deals with this multifaceted policy field exclusively from an economic perspective.
In the lecture, you will deal with the following introductory topics: basic questions of measuring development and
poverty, with development policy goals and actors. After a short excursion into growth theory, which is used to
identification of sources of economic development, you will work out answers to the question, why - despite similar starting conditions - some countries are able to achieve development successes, while others do not.
Strategic approaches will be in the foreground in the further course of the lecture. They will deal with "BigPush" concepts, the role of traditional and modern sectors, and with questions of foreign economic orientation in the development process, and finally, you will learn about structural adjustment programs and of poverty reduction will be introduced and evaluated.
With the scope and forms of public development aid, related problems and possible problems and possible solutions in the fifth chapter and concludes with a discussion of whether and in what way the initially defined goals at the outset have been achieved over time.

Anmeldemodalitäten:

The (voluntary) registration is done through the e-learning platform moodle. The registration for the exam takes place through FlexNow within the deadlines as published by the Examination Office.

Art

Lecture and Tutorial

Veranstaltungsnummer

073010

Rhythmus

WiSe

Ort

HGB 20

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