Course 2013-2014 a.y.
30195 - ECONOMICS (POVERTY, INEQUALITY AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION)
CLEAM - CLEF - CLEACC - BESS-CLES - BIEMF
Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
The course consists of three parts. The first part introduces the theoretical and practical issues faced by the measurement of poverty and inequality. The second part discusses some important causes and consequences of poverty and inequality, focusing on issues such as international trade, migration, technical change, crime and international conflict. Finally, we review the evidence about the effectiveness of alternative policies for fighting poverty.
- Long-run trends in poverty and inequality
- The World distribution of income
- Poverty headcounts
- The Amiel-Cowell experiments
- Pareto, Gini and the Lorenz curve
- The Atkinson’s Index
- The axiomatic approach: Sen
- Consumption, income and wealth
- Within- and between-family inequality
- Poverty and inequality in Italy
- Empirical evidence across countries
- Growth and income distribution: the Kuznets curve
- Globalization and skill-biased technical change: new views on an old debate
- International migration
- Crime, violence and conflict
- Aid effectiveness: the empirical evidence
The assessment is written. No difference between attending and not attending students. Students can have a look at corrected exams before the registration. A computer workshop session with STATA is offered during the semester where students are trained on the computation of poverty and inequality indexes. A lecture from a visiting scholar is held.
No partial exams or group assignments are scheduled.
F. COWELL, Measuring Inequality, Oxford University press, 3rd edition (ISBN 9780199594047).
No specific prerequisites are required but basic knowledge of microeconomics, macroeconomic and statistics. The course is mainly addressed toward students who plan to enrol for in the Master of Science.