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Economics 15:

Economic Poverty and Inequality


Swarthmore College
Professor Jefferson, Kohlberg 209
Office Hours: Tues. 1-2:30pm & by appt.

Spring 2015
pjeffer1@swarthmore.edu

This course examines the causes and consequences of poverty and income/wealth
inequality. Topics covered include measurement, mobility, and the impact of
globalization, technical change, taxation, and aid. Micro interventions and macro
initiatives are contrasted. Public policies and programs aimed at prevention, alleviation,
and redistribution are analyzed and evaluated. The developed and developing country
contexts are considered.
TEXT: Jefferson, P., ed. (2012): The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Poverty,
Oxford University Press, New York. (Required, denoted by OHEP below).

Coursework

Due Date

Grading

Group Presentations

Throughout the semester

15%

Group Papers

Day of Group Presentation

15%

Midterm Exam

Tuesday 17 March, in class

30%

Final Exam

Set by Registrar

40%

GROUPS: You will be randomly assigned to a small working group.


PRESENTATIONS: Your group will present one (or more) of the structured classroom
discussions/presentations. Your group will be randomly assigned one of the topics below.
PRESENTATION GUIDELINES: Presentations should be accompanied by Power
Point slides. The goal of the presentation is to foster understanding of and insight into
the topic under study. This requires that the structure of the presentation be thought out
and coherent. A good place to start is to think hard about the following questions: What
question or issue does this article address? Why is this question or issue important? How
do the authors propose to answer this question? What theory, data, and statistical
methods, do the authors use? Are these methods appropriate? Not all of these questions
are relevant for all papers. Nor does this list of questions exhaust the set of interesting
questions that can be asked about any particular article. Use your judgment and be
creative. The presentation should run 20-25 minutes.

PAPERS: Your group will write short paper. The papers topic will be the same as the
groups presentation topic.
PAPER GUIDELINES: Typed 1,000 words or less, double spaced, 12 point font, word
count reported at top, NO FOOTNOTES, pages numbered. The 1,000 word count limit
only applies to the main body of the paper. The front matter (authors names, date, paper
title, etc.) and the back matter (tables, graphs, reference section, etc.) do not count against
the word count limit. The paper is an opportunity for your group to analyze an important
topic and to demonstrate your understanding of public policy options/debates related to
poverty and inequality. The first third to a half of the paper should be a very concise
overview of the assigned readings for your topic. The remainder of the paper should be a
comment on, or critique of, the readings. (In the remainder portion of the paper, you
should feel free to draw upon sources beyond those on the syllabus. Should you choose
to go in this direction, however, it is essential that you scrupulously document and cite
your references!) A premium will be placed on clear and concise writing. Therefore,
points will be deducted from your paper for poor writing unless you turn it in with a
complete WAed draft signed by one of this semesters Writing Associates.
SUBMISSION OF GROUP WORK: With one exception, your group assignments
should be submitted electronically via the Moodle site for this course.
(i) Group Presentation: Upload your presentation slides. The file should be a Power
Point document. To upload your file, click on the presentation upload link for your
topic. So that everyone in your group gets credit: (i) the file name should include the last
name of everyone in the group. For example, WashingtonLincolnRoosevelt.pptx; (ii) the
e-mail address of each person in the group should be listed within the file.
Uploaded by: presenter(s) only
(ii) Group Paper: Upload your paper. The file should be a MS Word document. Click
on the paper upload link for your topic. So that everyone in your group gets credit: (i)
the file name should include the last name of everyone in the group. For example,
WashingtonLincolnRoosevelt.docx; (ii) the e-mail address of each person in the group
should be listed within each file.
Uploaded by: presenter(s) only
(iii) Complete WAed draft of Group Paper: If your group decides to purchase
writing insurance, then the group should submit to me a hard copy only of a complete
draft of the group paper signed by one of this semesters Writing Associates. This hard
copy should be submitted at the time of the group presentation.

COURSE TOPICS & READINGS


Texts followed by (GR) are on General Reserve at McCabe Library. Selected articles, in PDF format, are
on the Moodle site for this course.

Part I
Topic 1: Some Facts and First Principles
Krugman, P. and R. Wells (2013): The Economics of the Welfare State, Chapter 18 in
Economics, 3rd Edition, Worth Publishers, New York, NY.
Johnson, C. and P. Mason (2012): Theories of Poverty: Traditional Explanations and
New Directions, Chapter 4 in OHEP, pp. 105-138.
Poverty and Inequality IQ quiz, The Stanford Center for Poverty and Inequality
(Online exercise). http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/ezquiz_test.php
Topic 2: Overview of Basic Statistics and Linear Regression
Newbold, P., W. Carlson, & B. Thorne (2013): Chapters 1 5 in Statistics for Business
and Economics, 8th ed., Pearson, New York; (GR)
Lewis-Beck, M. (1980): Applied Regression: An Introduction, Sage University Paper on
Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-022. Newbury Park, CA.
(GR)

Part II
Topic 3: Income Inequality: Definition and Measurement
Morelli, S., T. Smeeding, J. Thompson, (2014): Post-1970 Trends in Within-Country
Inequality and Poverty: Rich and Middle Income Countries, (Section 4a Only)
IRP Discussion Paper, No. 1419-14.
Nussbaum, M. (1999): Women and Equality: The Capabilities Approach, International
Labour Review, Vol. 138, No. 3, pp. 227-245.
Topic 4: Poverty: Definition and Measurement
Ravallion, M. (2012): Poverty Lines across the World, Chapter 3 in OHEP, pp. 75104.
Jefferson, P. (2012): A New Statistic: The U.S. Census Bureaus Supplemental
Poverty Measure, Chapter 25 in OHEP, pp. 797-806.

Part III
Topic 5: Wealth Inequality: Local and Global
McKernan, S., C. Ratcliffe, and T. Shanks (2012): Is Poverty Incompatible with Asset
Accumulation? Chapter 14 in OHEP, pp. 463-493.
Piketty, T. (2014): Income and Output, Chapter 1 in Capital in the Twenty-First
Century, pp. 39-71, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. (GR)
Topic 6: Distribution
Rawls, J. (1971): Distributive Shares, Chapter V in A Theory of Justice, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA. pp. 258-332.
Mankiw, N. (2013): Defending the One Percent, Journal of Economic Perspectives,
Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 2134.
3

Part IV
Topic 7: Economic Mobility
The Pew Charitable Trusts (2012): Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility
across Generations, Washington, D.C., http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-andanalysis/reports/0001/01/01/pursuing-the-american-dream
Reeves, R and I. Sawhill (2014): Equality of Opportunity: Definitions, Trends, and
Interventions, presented at Federal Reserve Bank of Boston 58th Economic
Conference: Inequality of Economic Opportunity, Boston, MA.
Topic 8: Education and Skills
Pew Research Center (2014): The Rising Cost of Not Going to College, (Overview and
Chapter1), http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-notgoing-to-college/
Barrow, L. and D. Schanzenbach (2012): Education and the Poor, Chapter 10 in OHEP,
pp. 316-343.

Part V
Topic 9: The Labor Market
Fields, G. (2012): Poverty and Low Earnings in the Developing World, Chapter 8 in
OHEP, pp. 249-273.
Duncan, B. and S. Trejo (2012): Low-Skilled Immigrants and the US Labor Market,
Chapter 7 in OHEP, pp. 203-248.
Topic 10: Discrimination
Hellerstein, J. and D. Neumark (2012): Employment in Black Urban Labor Markets:
Problems and Solutions, Chapter 6 in OHEP, pp. 164-202.
Gray, W., R. Shadbegian, and A. Wolverton (2012): Environmental Justice: Do Poor
and Minority Populations Face More Hazards? Chapter 18 in OHEP, pp. 605637.

Part VI
Topic 11: Public Policy and Poverty Alleviation
Acemoglu, D. and J. Robinson (2012): The Making of Prosperity and Poverty, Chapter
3 in Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Crown
Business, New York. (GR)
Ben-Shalom, Y., R. Moffitt, and J. Scholz (2012): An Assessment of the Effectiveness
of Anti-Poverty Programs in the United States, Chapter 22 in OHEP, pp. 709749.
Topic 12: Redistributive Policies and Inequality
Piketty, T. (2014): Rethinking the Progressive Income Tax, Chapter 14 in Capital in
the Twenty-First Century, pp. 493-514, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
(GR)
Ostry, J., A. Berg, and C. Tsangarides (2014): Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth,
IMF Staff Discussion Note, SDN/14/02,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf

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