Economic Growth: Lessons from the Past

2022/2023

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of Theoretical Economics

Course type:

Elective course

When:

3 year, 1, 2 module

Instructor

Natkhov, Timur

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course presents recent research on the origins of economic growth. The two main questions that underlie the lectures will be: why are contemporary societies so much wealthier than the past ones, and why are there such large differences in living standards across societies today? To investigate these questions we will overview long-run trends in economic and demographic history, and theories that aim to explain patterns in the data. Unlike traditional courses in economic history that present a chronological sequence of key events, this course is organized around important theoretical questions in the fields of economic growth, development economics and political economy. We will see that history is an invaluable source of data, a “natural laboratory” that social scientists have at their disposal to confront their theories with evidence. In addition, the course focuses on modern empirical methods that are widely used in economics and political science. Discussing papers with interesting research questions, original data and clever empirical strategy will give students a taste for empirical work in social sciences. A “fun part” of the course relates the best papers in the field to the famous historical movies. You may watch a movie while reading a paper to acquaintance yourself with the historical background and boost your intuition about the mechanisms of the observed quantitative results.