Introduction to Economic Growth

with Charles I. Jones

Summary

The textbook is a concise introduction to modern growth theory, aimed at advanced undergraduates. I came aboard for this 3rd edition, and Chad Jones (Stanford) is the original author. It covers the basic Solow model, endogenous innovations of both product-variety and quality-ladder types, and then takes on topics in development, the environment, and the take-off to sustained growth. It uses calculus and differential equations, but you can definitely adapt to teach it to students without that background (I do it every year).

Available from WW Norton. Find it at Amazon

Supplements and materials

I like to think of the blog as a supplement to the course, and I use a lot of posts as material when I teach from the book. The publisher's site is here, if you want an exam copy or access to the solutions manual. It also includes PDF's of the books figures.

I also maintain a Study Guide site that I use in my own undergraduate class. This covers roughly the same material, and has sub-sections with additional case studies or examples I use in class.

Links to several other teaching resources:

Basic slides I use for class

Some maps in raw form (png, jpg, etc) I use to talk about geography and growth

All the figures from the book in JPG and PNG format

All the figures from the book in PPT format