Course Description

[This is a certified Communication-intensive (CI) Course which meets all of the requirements endorsed by HKU’s Senate, including (i) the teaching assessment of written and visual communication ‘literacies’; and (ii) at least 40% of the course grade is assigned to communication-rich assessment tasks.]

This course studies how poor nations have alleviated poverty through economic growth and why inequality continues to persist in rich nations. We examine closely how empirical evidence is used to arrive at robust findings of falling inequality globally, but rising inequality within nations. Simple economic ideas on economic growth, international trade and investments are learned and used to explain why the spread of markets and economic globalization has fostered growth and reduced poverty in many poor nations. We also examine why some poor nations have failed to grow and remain mired in poverty. We also consider why poverty has not been eliminated in rich countries and why inequality has increased in recent decades. The role of human capital investments, technological advances, and political economy factors are introduced and used to investigate the experiences of the rich economies, including Hong Kong.

The course helps students to:

• gain an understanding of why some nations succeed to grow and others remain poor;
• learn why prosperity within and across nations is not equally shared;
• understand the interplay of the state and the market in affecting growth and poverty; and
• attain a critical appreciation of why different individuals and groups support or oppose globalization.

Students are introduced to examples of how political processes in one nation can impact development outcomes in another nation. They study how political processes interacting with economic processes at local, national, and global levels can lead to great variations in development outcomes.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Understand and critically interpret key economic concepts and ideas through applying them to quantitative data on growth and poverty across the world and over time.
2. Understand and critically interpret and reflect upon interacting economic and political dimensions of growth and poverty.
3. Understand and critically interpret and reflect upon the outcomes for growth and poverty comparing socialist versus capitalist economies and open versus closed economies through the study of cases and examples in history.
4. Understand and critically interpret and reflect upon the relationship between issues of growth and poverty and its broader relationship with human development.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

First semester (Wed)