The Challenge of World Poverty

Photo of a group of flimsy makeshift housing for poor families in Ghana.

The living conditions of the poor in Ghana. (Photo by Jenny Johnston on Flickr.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

14.73

As Taught In

Spring 2011

Level

Undergraduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This is a course for those who are interested in the challenge posed by massive and persistent world poverty, and are hopeful that economists might have something useful to say about this challenge. The questions we will take up include: Is extreme poverty a thing of the past? What is economic life like when living under a dollar per day? Why do some countries grow fast and others fall further behind? Does growth help the poor? Are famines unavoidable? How can we end child labor—or should we? How do we make schools work for poor citizens? How do we deal with the disease burden? Is micro finance invaluable or overrated? Without property rights, is life destined to be "nasty, brutish and short"? Has globalization been good to the poor? Should we leave economic development to the market? Should we leave economic development to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Does foreign aid help or hinder? Where is the best place to intervene?

Other Versions

Related Content

Esther Duflo, and Abhijit Banerjee. 14.73 The Challenge of World Poverty. Spring 2011. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


For more information about using these materials and the Creative Commons license, see our Terms of Use.


Close