ECON1910 – Poverty and Distribution in Developing Countries

Knowledge

You will learn:

• important facts about the incidence and trends of poverty in the world;
• how to measure poverty and inequality, and how the choice of measure may affect understanding and policy; and
• theory and evidence on the causes and consequences of poverty and underdevelopment, for instance:
  • how poverty traps from nutrition, education, and markets may hamper development;
  • how poverty affects and is affected by family dynamics and gender issues;
  • how the absence of credit and savings markets may explain lack of investments; and
  • how weak institutions and lack of social cohesion may suppress development.

Skills

You should be able to:

• calculate summary measures of poverty and inequality;
• use models as an analytical tool to discuss poverty, inequality and economic development; and
• evaluate development policy on the basis of theory and evidence.

Competence

You should be able to:

• follow economic reasoning related to the course, for instance when reading professional reports; and
• recognise the difference between well founded knowledge and weakly founded opinions.

Students at UiO must apply for courses in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

You can not attend this course if you have already passed specific ECON-courses at a higher level.

Lectures and seminars.

If no English-speaking students attend the course, the course will be taught in Norwegian.

A written assignment will be given during the semester. It is not compulsory to submit.

See The Faculty of Social Sciences' rules regarding change of seminar groups.

At the start of the semester, the course responsible can update the syllabus list by replacing up to 3 articles, without the scope and thematic content of the syllabus changing significantly.

The syllabus also includes any lecture notes that are made available during the semester.

This course has a 3-hour written school exam.

Previously issued exam papers and grading guidelines

Exam papers with comments from examiner

If you are sick or have another valid reason for not attending the regular exam, we offer a postponed exam later in the same semester.

There are restrictions on resitting this exam. See further information about resitting an exam.

Students who wish to retake an examination later, are not guaranteed that the course will be given with the same content and syllabus, or that it will be the same type of exam.