Focus on the Role of Institutions in Development and Growth Gerard Roland's new text, Development Economics, is the first undergraduate text to recognize the role of institutions in understanding development and growth. Through a series of chapters devoted to specific sets of institutions, Roland examines the effects of institutions on growth, property rights, market development, and the delivery of public goods and services and focuses. Organized in three key parts to give students a thorough overview: Roland begins by introducing the big issues of development The second part gives a through treatment of the economics of institutions and why they matter. The third part analyzes development outcomes while building on the institutional framework introduced in part two. Program Evaluation Emphasis With the most comprehensive and up to date treatment of institutions on development, Roland explores the important questions of why some countries develop faster than others and why some fail while others are successful. Program evaluation helps determine which programs are best, and which policies have the best ratio in achieving goals of health, education, welfare, and other measures of development. Roland introduces the latest research related to randomized program evaluation and how it can be used to evaluate different aid programs. Features that Motivate Learning Chapter opening vignettes motivate the discussion and explore issues such as poverty conditions in Haiti, the rise of GDP in China, or how the Internet can help markets grow in developing economies.
Applications in each chapter highlight various related topics to give examples and further understanding. Summaries of the main points in each section conclude each chapter and include a set of review questions that ask students to gather and analyze data Data, figures, and maps help students visually grasp the main issues in development such as poverty, differences in income per capita across the world, literacy rates, infant mortality, and others. The Econometric Appendix at the end of the book intuitively reviews basic econometric concepts, methods, and how to read regression tables. The text is accompanied by a Solutions Manual written by the author; a Companion Website containing Key Concepts, multiple choice Quizzes, and Graphing and Quantitative Exercises for each chapter; and a Power Point Presentation with a comprehensive set of lecture notes and figures from the text.