Is massive and persistent poverty a thing of the past? Does foreign aid matter? How do people take decisions when living under $1.90 per day? Are the poor always hungry? How do we make schools and hospitals work for the poor? Is microfinance a silver bullet or overrated? At the end of this course, students should have a good sense of the key questions asked by scholars interested in poverty today, and (hopefully) a few answers as well. The student who successfully completes the course will be able to evaluate and assess policy interventions aimed at reducing extreme poverty. More specifically, she will understand the difference between correlation and causation and be able to disentangle descriptive pieces of evidence from causal ones.
Students can download slides and additional readings and interact with colleagues and instructors in Moodle.