• Explain the concept of the Malthusian trap. How does it potentially help us to understand why the world remained relatively poor for so long? What broke the trap?
• Discuss the differences between how Adam Smith and Karl Marx understood the process of economic development.
• Explain the Lewis Model and how Arthur Lewis understood the process of development as led by urban industry. How did the Lewis model borrow from Marx’s understanding of development?
• Explain Schumpeter’s “Creative Destruction.” How is it applicable to understanding the economy today?
• What are some of the newer explanations of how economic development occurs? Discuss the institutional, cultural, and geography hypotheses.
• How did the work of the 2019 Nobel Prize Winners in Economics change the way development economists’ study economic development?
