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ESSAY

Word limit:  1600 + 10%.  References / bibliography don’t count as part of the word limit and nor does the title of the essay but everything else does.

Asterisked readings are also on the main reading list

1. Does convergence, where it exists, owe more to poor countries’ growth rates accelerating or rich countries’ growth rates slowing down?

Reading: 

* Weil ch.3

* P.Aghion, C.Antonin & S.Bunel, ‘Convergence, Divergence and the Middle Income Trap’ ch.7 of The Power of Creative Destruction

* D.Patel, J.Sandefur & A.Subramanian, ‘The New Era of Unconditional Convergence’, Journal of Development Economics 152 (2021) 1-18

R.Barro, ‘Convergence and Modernisation’ Economic Journal June 2015

D.McCloskey ‘The Great International Divergence Can Be Overcome’,  

ch.9 of Bourgeois Equality

 A.Deaton, ‘Globalisation and the Great Escape’, ch.6 of The Great Escape

R.Jong-A-Pin & J. de Haan, ‘Political  Regime Change, Economic Liberalism & growth accelerations’ Public Choice (2011) 146, 93-115  

2. Are automation and AI about to make the recent productivity slowdown an irrelevant blip?

Reading:  

* Weil chs. 8 & 9

* P.Aghion, C.Antonin and S.Bunel, ‘The Secular Stagnation Debate’ ch.6 of The Power of Creative Destruction

Phil Mullan, Creative Destruction, ch.2

N.Crafts, “The Productivity Slowdown: Is it the New Normal?”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy Autumn 2018

* F.Calvino & C.Criscuolo, ‘Gone Digital:Technology Diffusion in the Digital Era’ ch x of (eds.) Z.Qurehi and C.Woo Shifting Paradigms

* W.Nordhaus, ‘Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity?’ Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper no.2021 https://www.nber.org/papers/w21547

A.Haldane, Productivity Puzzles https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2017/productivity-puzzles.pdf

E.Brynjolfsson, D. Rock and C. Syveron (2017), ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox : A Clash of Expectations and Statistics’, NBER Working Paper 24001 https://www.nber.org/papers/w24001

L.Kotlikoff, ‘Does Prediction Machines Predict Our AI Future’, Journal of Ecoonmic Literature Summer 2022

A.Ramani & Z.Wang, ‘Why Transformative AI is really, really hard to achieve’ https://thegradient.pub/why-transformative-artificial-intelligence-is-really-really-hard-to-achieve/ 

3. How does the balance-of-payments constrain countries’ growth rates? So far as it does, what would you do about it?

Reading: 

 * A.P.Thirlwall, Economic Growth in a Developing Economy ch.5

* R.Higgs, ’Against the Whole Concept and Construction of the Balance of International Payments’ The Independent Review, Fall 2018

C.Garcimartin et.al., ‘Balance of payments constrained growth and convergence: one more piece of the jigsaw’, Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, Spring 2014

Cimoli M. et. al. ‘Structural Change and the BOP constraint: why did Latin America Fail to Converge?’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, March 2010

4.  “The proposition that free trade is good for growth rests on some doubtful econometrics and little else.”  Discuss.

Reading:

* Weil ch.11 （Ashraf, Q., & Weil, D. N. (2025). Economic growth. (Fourth edition / Quamrul H. Ashraf and David N. Weil.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315147635）

* A.Panagariya, ‘Debunking Protectionist Myths: Free Trade, the Developing World, And Prosperity’, Cato Institute, 2019

* A.Banerjee & E.Duflo, ‘The Pains from Trade’, ch.3 of Good Economics for Hard Times

* J.Lin & H-J Chang ‘Should Industrial Policy In Developing Countries Conform to Comparative Advantage or Defy it?’  Development Policy Review 2009, 27 (5) 483-502  

* A.Panagariya, ‘Trade, Openness and Growth: The Empirical Evidence’ ch.6 of Free Trade and Prosperity

 D.Irwin, ‘Does Trade Reform Promote Economic Growth? A Review of Recent Evidence’  World Bank Research Observer 2024   

P.Ekanayake et. al., ‘Trade and Economic Growth: Does the Sophistication of Traded Goods Matter?, Journal of Economic Growth December 2023

D. IrwIn, Free Trade Under Fire (2015 edn.) pp.44-63 and 195-221

A.P.Thirlwall, Economic Growth in a Developing Economy, ch.6

O.Licando & G.Impullitti ‘Quantifying the Gains from Trade’, https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/quantifying-gains-trade 

C.Dillow, ‘Securonomics versus Productivity’ https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2023/05/securonomics-vs-productivity.html 

5. Why did Mancur Olson conclude that only institutions matter for long-run growth?  How far do you agree with him?

Reading: 

Weil chs.12-13

 M.Olson, ‘Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations are Rich &

 Others Poor’ Journal of Economic Perspectives Spring 1996

* A.Haldane, ‘Ideas and Institutions  -- A Growth Story’, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/andy-haldane-speech-given-at-the-oxford-guild-society

* J.Y.Lin & C.Monga, ‘Unpleasant Truths’, ch.2 of Beating the Odds: Jump-Starting Developing Countries

F Alexandre & F.J.Vega ‘The Political Economy of Productivity Growth’, European Journal of Political Economy’ December 2022

S.Khodaverdian, ‘The African Tragedy: The effect of democracy on economic growth’, Empirical Economics March 2022

D.Rodrik, A.Subramian and F.Trebbi, ‘Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development’ Journal of Economic Growth, June 2004

E.R.Glaser et al. ‘Do Institutions Cause Growth?’ Journal of Economic Growth, September  2004

P. Lloyd & C.Lee, ‘A Review of the Recent Literature on the Institutional Economics Analysis of the Long-Run Performance of Nations’ Journal of  Economic Surveys, February 2018

6. Do any of the following, namely ‘Green Growth’, ‘Degrowth’, or ‘Agrowth’ measure up as a strategy to depose ‘Economic Growth’ as the cure-all for most of the world’s economic ills?

Reading:

* Kate Raworth, ‘Be Agnostic About Growth’, ch.7 of Doughnut Economics

* Authors’  Preface  from Donella H. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows, Limits to growth: the 30-year update 

* G. Herrington, ‘Update to limits to growth: Comparing the World3 model with empirical data’  Journal of Industrial Ecology, June 2021

* Michael Jacobs ‘Green Growth: Economic Theory and Political Discourse’ Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy Working Paper No. 108 (2012)

* Giorgos Kallis, ‘In defence of degrowth’, Ecological Economics 15 March 2011, Pages 873-880.

* Jason Hickel & Giorgos Kallis, ‘Is Green Growth Possible?’, New Political Economy. 25, 4, 2020

* J.C.J.M.Van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. (2015) : Green 'agrowth' as a third option: Removing the GDP-growth constraint on human progress, WWWforEurope Policy Paper, No. 19 (2015)

S. Hallegatte, et. al., ‘From Growth to Green Growth - a Framework’, NBER Working Paper No. 17841, February 2012.

Marco Capassoa et. al., ‘Green growth – A synthesis of scientific findings’ Technological Forecasting & Social Change 146 (2019), pp. 390–4.

François Schneider, Giorgos Kallis, Joan Martinez-Alier, ‘Crisis or opportunity? Economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability’, Journal of Cleaner Production,  April 2010. 

GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR ESSAY

1 Strength and clarity of argument. Make sure that each step follows logically from the one before. Above all, don’t use ‘therefore’ when it isn’t a therefore, or ‘however’ when in fact it’s a ‘moreover’ or vice versa.  When this happens it’s generally just carelessness but it gives the impression that you can’t think.

2 Structure. Ask yourself what each step is doing in that place and whether it could be better placed. After your first draft it might help to label each paragraph in a few words and then reconsider the order of the labels. The best test of good structure is that it doesn’t make you repeat yourself, except possibly in the conclusion.  

3. Evidence. Use facts and figures to defend what you’re saying whenever you can. After your first draft look for holes, i.e. points where evidence is needed but none yet provided.  But don’t go in for saturation bombing (e.g. six pieces of evidence all pointing to the same thing.)  One killer fact is worth any number of inconclusive ones.

4. Conclusion. Come to a good strong conclusion, supported by what you’ve written.  Your conclusion is not an abstract of the essay i.e. don’t summarise everything you’ve said.

5. Introduction. Keep it short, if you have one at all

6. Grammar, spelling and punctuation. Some students do so few essays / reports that it would be wrong to be too draconian on people who simply haven’t had the practice. But you will nonetheless lose marks if there are too many faults in your writing.

7. Balance. When you are arguing a case, you should keep in mind the counter-arguments but don’t necessarily have to state them.  Use your judgment. If a counter-argument is particularly widely held or considered especially cogent, you might mention it & say why you don’t agree with it or, if you do think it’s valid, why it’s not conclusive.

8. Reading.  There is no minimum or maximum amount of reading that you’re required to do but a good essay is likely to involve an amount of reading equivalent to the reading list provided i.e. something to replace everything you don’t choose from the list.  If you want to do your own research on the literature Scholar Google is a good place to start.  Alternatively I might be able to think of additional things for you. You won’t lose marks because of failure to cite any particular book or article.

9. Referencing You can use any referencing system you like so long as you give the author, title and date of publication for books, and additionally the name of the journal for articles. For internet downloads give the web address and the date of download (unless it’s a book or journal article, in which case reference it as above.)

10. Word limit. The word limit is 1600 + 10%. As the essay is ‘summative’ we can’t turn a blind eye to excess or will get justified protests from students who did stay within the limit. You will therefore lose one mark for every 50 words or part of 50 words that you go over the limit.  References, whether in the form of footnotes or as a bibliography at the end, don't count as part of the word count, and neither does the essay title. Everything else does.

11. Marking criteria. The university marking criteria (excluding the bits irrelevant to this module) are at the top of the module’s ELE page. They are a reasonable guide to what sort of essay gets what.  A first-class mark can be got by substantial originality, particularly effective argument or particularly good writing.  Essays which merely have nothing wrong with them will get a mark in the upper 60s.

HOW TO HAND IN YOUR ESSAY

Essays are handed in electronically, using ELE2. File must be Word or pdf.

We will be using ELE2 to check your essay for any plagiarism and you are also able to do this for yourself if you wish:

When you submit your essay you will see a link to Turnitin on the ELE page. If you click on this you will get an originality report and a percentage ‘unoriginality’ score. However, the latter isn’t a good guide to the degree of plagiarism because it simply adds up everything that has been written before i.e. it will include the whole of your bibliography and the AI cover sheet (see below).  What you need to check for is substantial chunks of prose which come up in colour in the main body of the essay and which you haven’t put in quotes or cited. If the report indicates this kind of plagiarism you should rewrite and try again.

You also have to complete a declaration regarding any use of GenAI that you have made.  You will find this on the module ELE page under Assessment.  NB that the declaration concerns GenAI as an input to the assessment. The essay is classified as AI-supported which means that GenAI must not be used as an output i.e. you must not use Chat GPT, Bard or any other form of GenAI to write the assessment or any part of it for you.