Poverty: Concepts and Challenges
Code
2160
Academic unit
null
Department
null
Credits
null
Teacher in charge
Paulo Santos
Teaching language
Objectives
This course will give students an overview of poverty, its causes and policy implications. The perspective will be microeconomic and applied, with small deviations to growth and theory where needed. We will finalize with a discussion of the relation between poverty, inequality and growth.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
Bibliography
In addition to selected research and policy papers, the course will be based on chapters of three books:
-Kevin Lang (2007), Poverty and Discrimination
-Thomas Piketty (2014), Capital in the Twenty First Century
-Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir (2014) Scarcity
Teaching method
There will be two classes of 1 hour and 20 minutes per week. For each topic, a general overview of the literature will be given. Recent literature will be studied in greater detail. Empirical studies will also be presented, in most cases by students.
Evaluation method
Presentation of a research paper (30 % for the grade): to be done in groups of 5‐6 (depending on class size) for the duration of approximately 40 minutes.
During this session students should:
(I) provide motivation to the research question;
(II) introduce the related literature;
(III) present the empirical results;
(IV) provide appropriate responses to questions from the class.
-Final exam (70% of the grade).