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Analyzing major economic questions relevant to less developed economies, this course aims to use economic analysis to further the students’ understandings of the obstacles to development in developing countries and discusses appropriate policies that can be adopted to overcome these obstacles. Issues resulting from unsustainable development such as unbalanced growth, inequality, poverty, human capital shortage, rural stagnation, trade imbalance, dependence on foreign aid and investment, and degenerating environment will be discussed by using examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Adam Smith develops his theory of economics, politics, and morality. Smith argues that it does not actually matter if societies are mainly driven by self-interest, since the overall effect is good. The ‘invisible hand’ of the free market makes sure that individuals acting to their own highest benefit end up elevating the whole. Smith believes that how wealthy a country becomes depends more than anything on the organization of its labor force. In Smith’s view, a nation grows rich by way of saving and trade, and looting, wars, and luxuries are dispensed. Smith also assumes that people should be free to follow their economic interests with minimum government interference.
This work, by the English economist David Ricardo, originally published in 1817, is one of the founding texts of modern economics. Ricardo, in this work, analyzed the laws determining the distribution of everything that could be produced by the “three classes of the community”—namely, the landlords, the workers, and the owners of capital, and argued that Adam Smith was mistaken in his understanding of the economic significance of rent, and also demonstrates the mutual benefit of free trade between countries, as against protectionism. This edition was reproduced from the original artifact.
