Good Economics for Hard Times
Learn how applied economics uses data to tackle some of society’s toughest challenges through case studies from the United States and other high income countries.
Good Economics for Hard Times
Learn how applied economics uses data to tackle some of society’s toughest challenges through case studies from the United States and other high income countries.
Why are some countries poor, and some countries rich? Should the United States trade more or less with China? Should the United States have a universal basic income? What can we do to mitigate climate change? Why does racism persist and how can we fight it?
What you'll learn
The course will investigate the following topics:
- Migration
- Trade
- Preferences (likes, wants, and needs)
- Economic growth
- Climate change
- Inequality
- Government
- Social policy
Access the full syllabus here.
Prerequisites
Course Readiness Check:
This is an introductory course that does not require a readiness check.
Meet your instructors
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Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics -
Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics
Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo
Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics
Esther Duflo is the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. She is also the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT. She was educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, in Paris, and at MIT. She has received numerous honors and prizes including a John Bates Clark Medal for the best American economist under 40 in 2010, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2009. She was recognized as one of the best eight young economists by The Economist magazine, one of the 100 most influential thinkers by Foreign Policy since the list exists, and one of the “Forty under 40” most influential business leaders under forty by Fortune magazine in 2010.
To learn more, please click here.
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee
Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics
Abhijit Banerjee is the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Harvard University. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. He is the recipient of many awards, including the inaugural Infosys Prize in 2009, and has been an honorary advisor to many organizations including the World Bank and the government of India.