Duration
9h Th, 9h Pr
Number of credits
| Master in agricultural bioengineering (120 ECTS) | 2 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
This course offers an introduction to selected topics in development economics. The aim is to analyze the major constraints impeding the economic development of rural areas in developing countries, namely a lack of access to credit, poor educational attainments and missing insurance markets. The course is divided into 4 chapters.
Chapter 1: Rural households' lack of access to credit is a major determinant of poverty. The first chapter provides an explanation of why credit is scarce and financial markets fail to reach poor households.
Chapter 2: In the second chapter, some principles of microfinance are analyzed, mainly the mechanism of joint liability. Besides, the functioning of informal savings groups such as "ROSCAS (Rotating Credit and Savings Associations)" is briefly explored.
Chapter 3: In the third chapter, some determinants of child labor and educational attainment are examined in connection with access to credit.
Chapter 4: Finally, in a context where formal insurance is missing, the fourth chapter studies the main constraints to mechanisms by which rural households share risk informally.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The aim of this course is to improve the students' understanding of some important constraints impeding economic development in rural areas.
After completing the course, the student are expected to be able to
highlight contextual and institutional elements that potentially lead to credit market imperfections and poor educational attainments,
explain the intuitions behind the economic models explored during the lectures and show his/her understanding of the related technical material,
show critical reasoning abilities in general.
Also, basic principles of game theory will be reviewed.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Before starting the course, the students are expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of statistics, such as a random variable, and of microeconomics, such as a utility function. In terms of mathematics, derivatives and simple optimization techniques will be used.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Lectures : 24h
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Face-to-face course
Recommended or required readings
Scientific articles will be available for readings, which are aimed at allowing a deep understanding of the course but those readings are not compulsory.
Assessment methods and criteria
Written examination (100%)
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
Contacts
Matthieu Delpierre Researcher at IWEPS Walloon Institute of Evaluation, Foresight and Statistics Route de Louvain-la-Neuve 2 5001 Belgrade m.delpierre@iweps.be