I am very excited to be teaching the Economics of Poverty again in the Fall of 2021.
A course outline for the Fall will be available once more details are available regarding schedules and health protocols. For now, here is the course description and basic structure:
Course Description
Poverty is a critical problem in essentially all societies, and demands policy action within individual countries and around the world. At the same time, the measurement of poverty, and the design of policies aimed at reducing it, are fundamentally difficult and controversial. This course is built around four primary questions:
- What does poverty mean? When is an individual or family considered “poor”? This could depend on income or wealth, but one might also consider other opportunities such as access to education, health care or other opportunities.
- Who lives in poverty? How many people or households live below the poverty line? Who are they? Are they mostly old or young? Families or individuals? How does poverty intersect with religion, gender or other features of identity?
- Why are people living in poverty? This might be the most contentious problem, but it is critical to understanding optimal policy responses.
- What can society do about poverty? What are the policy options available to us? How can a society support people living in poverty, and create the conditions for people to move out of poverty?
This set of questions can be asked about societies of different geographic scale (the world, country, region, city, university, etc.) and at different times in history. One point we will return to throughout the course is whether the answers to these questions change over history and geography. Should we understand poverty in Canada today as fundamentally different from the Canada of 150 years ago, or of Brazil, India or Nigeria today? Why or why not?
Course Structure
This course closely follows the text, The Economics of Poverty, published in 2016 by Martin Ravallion. Students are asked to read and summarize the text before each class, and identify key issues and questions for discussion. The class session will focus on connecting the key elements of the text to current issues and extending the analysis to the Canadian context. Class attendance and active participation is expected and strongly recommended.
The first course project, a country study that students can choose to complete alone or in small groups, involves a presentation based around the first two core questions, and a related paper focused on the first three. The second project, is a policy brief on Canadian policy with the primary focus on what society can and/or should do about poverty.
There are also two in-class midterms and a final exam made up of short-answer questions focusing on the technical concepts in the course.