Lecture 1: The Capitalist Revolution
Notes on Lecture 1
In the past the whole world was very equal. Britain was the first country to experience a sustained period of explosive growth in its living standards which allowed it to transition from a low income country to a high income country. This transition was most likely due to technological progress.
The later the economy experiences this sustained period of explosive growth, the more explosive the growth process tends to be. India and China are the latest countries that are experiencing this sustained period of explosive growth in its living standards.
Lecture 2: Technological Change, Population, and Growth
Optional Reading
⚾ North, D (1990).
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic. Chapter 4: A
transaction cost theory of exchange.
Lecture 3: Scarcity, Work, and Choice
Optional Reading
⚾ Tim Hartford. 4th Oct
2019. The triple risk of raising the US and UK minimum wage.
Lecture 4
Optional Reading
⚾ Basu, K (1983). On why we do not try to walk off without paying after a tax-ride. Economic and Political Weekly.
⚾ The Collapse of the Grand Banks Cod Fishery
⚾ John Forbes Nash Jr.
Lecture 5
⚾ Oliver Hart: Incomplete contracts and the theory of the firm
Lecture 7
Notes on Lecture 7
Change often comes in form of inventing new things. The problems firms and nations often face is to value the new goods. Valuing new goods require pinning down prices of goods. As one can imagine, pinning down the price of goods that have not yet been invented is not easy. The two article below look back in history and find how using prices to value good during periods of tectonic changes can be problematic.
Nordhaus, W. D. (2007). Two centuries of productivity growth in computing. The Journal of Economic History, 67(01):128–159.
Nordhaus, William D. Do real-output and real-wage measures capture reality? The history of lighting suggests not. The economics of new goods. University of Chicago Press, 1996. 27-70.
Lecture 20
⚾ Weitzman’s book reviewed in FT.
- Gernot, and Martin L. Weitzman. Climate shock: the economic consequences of a hotter planet. Princeton University Press, 2015.