The Wealth of Nations
Fall 2024 (Preliminary)
Course Schedule and Outline
Week 1: Resources and Wealth
Lecture: ?Investment vs. Productivity Driven Growth
Case Study: ??Is China’s?Growth Driven by Debt?
Readings:
Paul?Krugman, “The Myth of Asia’s Miracle,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994.
Financial Times, “The Debt Dragon” Also look at the?other?articles?in the?FT's series on Chinese debt (http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/china-debt-dragon)
60 Minutes Video on China's "Ghost?Cities": http://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-real- estate-bubble-lesley-stahl-60-minutes/
"How China’s Past Stimulus is Dogging Its Growth Prospects,” Wall Street Journal,
September 16, 2016. ?For more details, see Bai, Hsieh, and Song,?“The Long Shadow of?China’s Fiscal?Stimulus,” Brookings Papers in Economic Activity, 2016.
Problem Set 1 Available
Week 2: Resource Allocation: Theory, Measurement, and Case Study of Venezuela
Lecture: Implications of Efficient Resource?Allocation
Discussion: Resource Misallocation in Venezuela
Readings:
Chang-Tai Hsieh, Edward Miguel, Daniel Ortega, Francisco Rodriguez, “The Price of?Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela’s Maisanta,” American Economic
Journal: Applied Economics, 2011. (only pages?196-203).
Problem?Set?1 Due
Week 3: Resource Misallocation: ?Case Studies of Informality in Mexico, Contract Labor in India, and Privatization of State-Owned Firms in China
Lecture: ?Measurement?and?Implications?of?Resource?Misallocation
Discussion: ??Case?Studies