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!

5.1 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: The Family
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lecture 12 introducing (somewhat) unorthodox findings on the family, from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.

5.1 Lecture: Foundations of Development Policy: Family Size
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lecture 12 on family size and gender discrimination from the spring 2011 MIT masters course, Foundations of Development Policy.

5.2 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: Household Decision Making
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lecture 13 on how families make decisions, from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.

5.2 Lecture: Foundations of Development Policy: Households
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lecture 13 on the intrahousehold decision making from the spring 2011 MIT masters course, Foundations of Development Policy.

5.3 Lecture: Challenges of world poverty: Gender discrimination
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lecture 14 on gender discrimination from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.

Challenges of World Poverty: A Sample Essay on Families
Swati Bhattacharjee / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A sample essay on family decision making written by Swati Bhattacharjee, a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow and Visiting Scholar at MIT for the spring 2011 undergraduate class Challenges of World Poverty.

Challenges of World Poverty: A Sample Essay on Gender Inequality
Roxana Azimi / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A sample essay on HIV and gender inequality written by Roxana Azimi an MIT undergraduate Economics Student for the spring 2011 undergraduate class Challenges of World Poverty

Challenges of world poverty: Essay Questions on Family
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Essay questions on family from the spring 2011 MIT undergraduate course, The Challenges of World Poverty.

Esther Duflo / July 6, 2010 / Bocconi University

A lecture by Prof. Esther Duflo given to Bocconi University (Italy).