Lecture 4 on the Bengal Famine of 1943, from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.
Teaching and Resources
This book grew, in part, out of years of teaching undergraduates and graduate students at MIT and elsewhere, and we hope that it can be used to support learning at various levels.
In the spring of 2011, we have been using the book for two courses: one, Challenges for World Poverty, an introductory course for students who do not have a background in economics. This course is a mix of lecture and discussion. Students read the book, as well as other papers, and they answer essay questions about the issues that they learn about. The second course, Foundations of Development Policies, is for advanced undergraduates and masters students.
In this section of the website, we provide the course materials from both. These materials include the lecture notes, assignments, and videos used throughout the course. We hope you will find this material useful as a supplementary resource to the book, and a way to enrich your learning experience.
Given that both courses are currently underway, this page will be regularly updated, so do check back often!
2.1 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: The Bengal Famine of 1943
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2.1 Lecture: Foundations of Development Policy: Nutrition
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lecture 2 from the spring 2011 MIT masters course, Foundations of Development Policy on nutrition and productivity.
2.2 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: Nutrition-based poverty traps
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lecture 5 on nutrition-based poverty traps from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.
2.2 Lecture: Foundations of Development Policy: Poverty Traps
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lecture 3 from the spring 2011 MIT masters course, Foundations of Development Policy on theory and evidence for nutritional-based poverty traps.
2.3 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: Nutrition
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lecture 6 on the hidden traps of nutrition from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.
2.3 Lecture: Foundations of Development Policy: Nutrients
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lecture 4 on Nutrition, nutrients, and poverty traps from the spring 2011 MIT masters course, Foundations of Development Policy.
Challenges of world poverty: Essay Questions on Consumption
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Essay questions on food from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.
Statcompiler
From the website: "STATcompiler is an online database tool that allows users to create customized tables of data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). STATcompiler makes avaulable over 130 indicators from 200+ surveys in 70+ countries."
Satyajit Ray
The "fine, elegiac" (New York Times) 1973 film by noted Bengali director, Satyajit Ray. It explores the Bengal famine of 1943. In Bengali with English subtitles.
LiveAid / March 7, 1985 / LiveAid
The original 1985 LiveAid music video, featuring a number of well-known musicians. This video was part of the popular drive towards charitable giving in light of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-1985.
