Why Nations Fail

This course is an introduction for Masters Students to comparative development through the lens of the political economy of institutions. The course will use my book with Daron Acemoglu Why Nations Fail (WNF) as background to much of the material but I will also discuss a lot of papers in this context. The course is also considerably more eclectic than WNF and will introduce you to other approaches to thinking about development. The last few lectures focus on what we know about policy for development and what conceptual approaches are promising.