Descriptif

In this course, we will study the role of human capital for economic development from a microeconomic perspective. We will examine decisions made by individuals and households in developing countries, in terms of preferences and constraints. We will learn a lot of facts about the lives of people in developing countries, in particular about the constraints that they face (lack of access to public goods, credit, information, markets, etc.). We will think about the causes and consequences of these constraints, to eventually assess what can be done to improve human capital in poor countries. We will review the evidence on what has been tried, what has been successful and what has failed, and importantly, why. We will see that not all evidence is good and learn how to tell good studies from the bad ones. We will make sure any statement we make in this course has theoretical foundations and is grounded in rigorous empirical evidence. By rigorous evidence, we mean empirical designs in which researchers are able to establish credible causal relationships.