If you are looking for a preview of the new MITx course 14.73x The Challenge of Global Poverty, check out OCWs version of the same course, which we published today. The course is published on our site with materials from Professors Duflo and Banerjee’s Spring 2011 course, and includes video lectures, exams with solutions, and a special writing advice section.
Here’s the 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?
The OCW version will give you a good idea of the territory to be covered in the MITx class, and allow you to begin exploring some of the topics addressed. If you’re not interested in the MITx experience, the materials on our site are a wonderful resource for a wide range of other uses and, like all OCW content, openly and persistently available–there when you need it.
