International Studies and Economics 13: The Global Economy Winter 2015
Paper Assignment The paper is supposed to between 1,400 and 1,800 words. (The details of the submission process will be announced later.) Your paper will be evaluated on (i) the quality of your thinking and argument and (ii) the quality of your writing (grammar, sentence structure, brevity of expression). Provide full citations of all sources that you have used. Any language used by other authors should be inside quotes (with the citation of the work and page number in which the quote appears). Anybody who uses unauthorized borrowed language from other texts and is, therefore, found to have plagiarized other writers' work will receive an automatic F in the course and be subject to additional sanctions. Choose one of the following topics for your paper. 1. Read the following article: Ross, Michael, "The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make you Poor," pp. 17-42, in I. Bannon and P. Collier (eds) in Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions, 2003,Washington D.C: World Bank. (Link to the book containing the article will be provided in course website.) Describe in your own words what the "natural resource curse" is. Then, provide some possible explanations of why some countries avoid it while others do not. You are encouraged to read (and cite) articles other than the one above, including other articles in the same book. 2. (On problems of GDP and other income concepts as measures of well-being.) Please first read the executive summary of Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add up by Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi. (You can either buy a hard copy or an ebook version – or, if you wish, borrow it from me for a few hours.) Choose three out of the first five recommendations for revamping thinking about measures of well- being. Then, read passages in the same book that are relevant to those three recommendations and, in addition, consult at least one other reading (article or part of a book) that deals with the problem. Summarize and explain in depth and in your own words how GDP and other income concepts fail as measures of well-being in the dimensions that are relevant to the three recommendations and, therefore, why the authors have made the recommendations. Disclosure: Students agree that by taking this course the required paper is subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Usage Policy agreement posted on the Turnitin.com site.
(Updated: January 29, 2015)