Get an unrivaled overview of one of the most pressing issues of our day. Professor Drezner leads you to fundamental insights about how the modern world works and an understanding of the functioning of the U.S., European, Chinese, and other major economies, as well as an appreciation for the special problems faced by underdeveloped nations.
Foundations of Economic Prosperity
Explore one of the most important economic issues in the world today—how to create and sustain prosperity—with this fascinating course by an expert in world economics.
Overview
About
Dr. Daniel W. Drezner is Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He earned his B.A. in Political Economy from Williams College and his M.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. Beyond academia, Professor Drezner served as an international economist in the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of International Banking and Securities Markets. He has also worked for the RAND Corporation; consulted for various for-profit, nonprofit, and public-sector agencies; and provided expert testimony for both houses of Congress. Professor Drezner was a nonresident fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. Professor Drezner is the author of four books, including All Politics Is Global. He blogs daily for Foreign Policy magazine, for which he is a contributing editor, and he has published articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has provided expert commentary on the global political economy for the BBC, C-SPAN, CNN International, MSNBC, Fox News, and ABC's World News Tonight.
Trailer
01: The Foundations of Economic Prosperity
Begin the course by contrasting the relative prosperity of North and South Korea. What explains the marked disparity in a region with the same geography and culture? Next, define prosperity and examine some widespread myths about how and why individuals and countries achieve affluence.
32 min
02: Does Economic Prosperity Make You Happy?
Explore the connection between income and happiness, focusing on the Easterlin paradox, proposed by economist Richard Easterlin in 1974, which holds that no correlation exists between happiness levels and per capita income across the developed world. Evaluate evidence for and against this conclusion.
30 min
03: Varieties of Entrepreneurship
Examine three types of entrepreneurship: productive, which includes innovation and expansion into new markets; destructive, which involves coercion or violence; and unproductive, such as monopoly-seeking. Today, the first is universally seen as the most desirable, but the other two were long regarded as legitimate or even prestigious.
32 min
04: Individual Prosperity—The Developed World
Probe the most effective strategy for ensuring individual prosperity in the developed world. First, study how wages and income are determined in a free market. Then, learn why the developed world puts a premium on human capital, which is synonymous with education.
30 min
05: Individual Prosperity—The Developing World
Developing countries vary widely in affluence, but common characteristics of their economies make it difficult for individuals to escape from poverty. Learn how the rule of law and modern capital markets are preconditions for fostering productive entrepreneurship in these nations.
32 min
06: Foundations of National Prosperity
How can countries as a whole prosper? Evaluate the ways that incentives for individuals often work against sustainable national prosperity. Study the limitations of gross domestic product as a measure of economic strength, and review the steps that propelled China into its present phase of rapid growth.
30 min
07: Perils to National Prosperity
Survey three popular explanations for the failure of many nations to prosper, discovering that counterexamples cast doubt on these theories. Then investigate the distinction between public goods that enhance growth, and public “bads” that inhibit it. The latter category includes overtaxation, excessive regulation, protectionism, and war.
30 min
08: Political Foundations of Prosperity
Turn from economics to politics, investigating the truth behind the view that democracies tend to contribute more to prosperity than autocracies. While authoritarian political institutions can, at times, lead to short bursts of prosperity, democracies have the advantage over the long term. Learn why here.
31 min
09: Mysteries of the Industrial Revolution
The graph of per capita income over time remained flat throughout human history, until 1800 when it took off due to the Industrial Revolution. Why was England the seedbed for this radical transformation? Study theories that try to explain why the English were in the right place at the right time.
32 min
10: Sources of Poverty
Probe the challenges facing the world’s estimated 1.25 billion poor people. Some economists believe that a “poverty trap” condemns the poorest nations to the bottom of the economic ladder. What is the evidence for this theory, and are there effective measures to break the cycle of poverty?
30 min
11: Reducing Poverty with Economic Development
Trace some of the big ideas that have guided the World Bank in its promotion of economic development in poor nations. Despite a wide range of approaches, no broadly effective formula has yet been found. This suggests that the developed and underdeveloped worlds obey fundamentally different economic models.
33 min
12: National Prosperity in the Developing World
Most economic development formulas fail miserably, but there are two proven pathways to prosperity. Learn how natural resource exploitation and export promotion allow some countries to break through to prosperity. Focus on the pitfalls that must be avoided for these approaches to work.
29 min
13: National Prosperity in the Developed World
As societies become developed, socioeconomic and sociopolitical changes create new impediments to continued economic growth. Investigate the challenges presented by four big problems: a decline in innovation, a demographic slowdown, a shift away from income maximization, and the paradoxical drawbacks of political stability.
31 min
14: Can Prosperity Be Lost?
Once attained, can prosperity be lost? Probe the circumstances that cause a developed country to lose economic ground. Focus on Argentina, which a hundred years ago was one of the ten richest countries in the world. What precipitated its decline, and what other factors threaten any nation’s hard-earned prosperity?
30 min
15: Inequality and Prosperity
Intuitively, one would expect that poverty and economic inequality go together, but history suggests that the opposite is true. Survey the rise and fall of inequality in a range of nations, including the United States. Is there a tipping point after which inequality can harm mass prosperity?
30 min
16: Globalization and Global Prosperity
Globalization is a cluster of technological, economic, and political innovations that have transformed the world economy. Investigate why globalization is not a new phenomenon and why it leads to greater prosperity. Then probe some of the myths about globalization, and analyze its role in promoting economic growth.
31 min
17: Great Powers and Global Prosperity
Address the importance of global public goods, which are services provided to other nations without profit, typically by a superpower, or hegemon. Great Britain played this role during the height of its empire. More recently, the United States has been the guarantor of global public goods.
33 min
18: The Washington versus the Beijing Consensus
Weigh the strengths and weaknesses of two competing forms of capitalism: the Washington consensus, developed by the United States during the cold war; and the Beijing consensus, which represents China’s approach to economic development since the 1980s. Which model better promotes global prosperity?
32 min
19: Political Challenges to Global Prosperity
Begin a series of lectures on challenges to global prosperity. The biggest threat to any nation’s prosperity is war. Look at three broad explanations for why war is now on the wane and what could reignite conflict on an economically ruinous scale.
30 min
20: Financial Challenges to Global Prosperity
As an example of financial challenges to global prosperity, focus on the housing bubble that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. Study different asset bubbles, including the 17th-century tulip mania. Also learn the five phases in the life cycle of a bubble—from the enthusiastic takeoff to the inevitable clean-up.
31 min
21: Will the Developed World Stagnate?
In the past few decades, the developed world has seen a general slowdown in per capita income growth. Is this a permanent trend? Review the factors that boost prosperity, then examine how each of these drivers of growth reaches a point of diminishing returns.
29 min
22: Global Prosperity and the Environment
Probe the environmental challenges of prosperity, focusing on the concept of negative externalities, which are costs not transmitted through price and which arise when dealing with environmental effects. Explore strategies for correcting externalities with market forces. In this context, address the problem of climate change.
29 min
23: Ideological Challenges to Global Prosperity
Study the critics of prosperity, who object to key elements of capitalist society. Investigate the four “R’s”: the romantics, the reactionaries, the revolutionaries, and the radicals. Among the thinkers you examine are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Friedrich von Hayek, and Ayn Rand.
30 min
24: The Ethics of Global Prosperity
Review the key conclusions reached in the course. Then close by looking at the ethical dimension of prosperity: What, if anything, do the globally prosperous owe the global poor? Test your own views against libertarian, contractarian, and cosmopolitan approaches to this question.
31 min
