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We will start with a review of the stylized facts and a discussion about growth in the pre-industrial era. The rest of the course is divided into three interrelated parts. First, we will discuss the main candidates for the fundamental causes of growth—luck, geography, culture and institutions—and recent work that has evaluated their empirical relevance. Second, we examine the interplay between these factors and innovation (both technological and institutional). In this part, we will also document how innovation invariably leads to creative destruction and sometimes to plain crises. We end by discussing how increased migration, social mobility and participation of women in the formal labor market reduced the waste of talent and thus gave rise to a more efficient allocation of labor.
See the full syllabus in the Materials section.