General Information on M1 internships, including an inventory of M1 internships (2018--)
The course will cover the main topics in optimization :
- static optimization : unconstrained, with equality constraints (Lagrange), with inequality constraints (Kuhn-Tucker) ;
- dynamic optimization : calculus of variations, dynamic programming and optimal control theory.
Natural resources are at the forefront of the response to local, national and global economic development. The goal of the course is to raise awareness among the students on the impact of natural resources on economic development in both, developed and developing countries. It relies on the literatures in economics and political sciences. After a rigorous treatment of the theory that helps to link natural resources and development, it covers a large array of recent empirical papers on the impact of natural resources on different economics outcomes but also to shed new light on the underlined mechanisms.[1]
The course consists in 4 parts:
1- Natural resources and economic development: cross-country analysis (macro effects)
- Case studies and stylized facts
- Related theory
- Empirical results on the impact of natural resources on economic growth
- Role of institutions to mitigate the effect of natural resources on economic growth
2- Natural resources and economic development: within-country analysis (local effects)
- Survey of the potential threats/strengths of the presence of natural resources on the local development
- Empirical evidence for both developed and developing countries of the impact of natural resources on different outcomes: income, local labor market, living standards, fiscal revenues, business environment, gender inequalities, health…
3- Natural resources and violence
- Theoretical background
- Evidence with cross-country analysis
- Evidence on local violence
4- Natural resources and institutions
- Impact of natural resources abundance on the quality of institutions, political change, transition to democracy, corruption and political incentives.
- Impact of institutions on natural resources investment.
[1] Please note that during the course, natural resources rely on non-renewable resources (oil, gas, diamond…) and not on renewable resources (water, forest…) or environment.
This course studies situations where competitive markets fail to achieve a collective optimum and the interventions used to remedy these so-called market failures. It discusses the sources of market failure and the role for government intervention: competition failure, public goods, externalities, and behavioral biases. It covers an array of topics central to economic policy making, and will discuss underlying economic theory, but also embed it in the context of empirical research on policy evaluation that has given new impetus to public economic thinking. Classic topics include those relating to allocative government activity in the presence of externalities and public goods (e.g., coordination of policies to combat climate change), as well as those related to imperfect competition.