In my class on food policy and agricultural development, I try to demonstrate the value of applied economic theory as a tool to understand the complex and emotionally vexing issue of world hunger.
Development Economics
About The Field
The field of development economics is intended to ground students in a variety of analytical perspectives on the development process. The required core course, Development Economics, concentrates on central themes including global poverty, growth, and the role of policies towards agriculture and trade. Other courses in the field complement this broad perspective, addressing such issues as nutrition and rural development, microeconomic poverty interventions, international finance, and political economy.
Students should refer to the Registrar's Field of Study Guide for definitive field requirements in a given academic year.
Current Students and Alumni
Graduates of The Fletcher School's field of development economic studies are in great demand by employers in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. These are a sample of Fletcher current students and alums:
Outside the Classroom
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- Smallholder Agricultural Finance: The Next Frontier of Financial Inclusion
- A Radical Proposal for a Basic Income Guarantee
- The Inclusive City: 2nd Annual Fletcher-MasterCard Inclusion Forum
- GDAE Open House
- IBGC Speaker Series - Challenges to Unlocking Asia's Potential
- In Their Own Hands: How Savings Groups are Revolutionizing Development
- Perspectives in International Development: What role religion plays when associated with NGO development
- Inclusive Growth: Ensuring Prosperity Reaches Africa’s Bottom of the Pyramid
- Transforming Smallholder Farming in Africa
- Careers in M&E
- Careers in M&E: Gender, Equity & Evaluation
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- The Faire Collection - Otavalo, Ecuador
- Accion - Bangalore, India
- USAID - Washington, DC
- PCI Parivartan - New Delhi, India
- Catholic Relief Services - Washington, DC
- The World Bank - Washington, DC
- Development Innovations - Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- UNDP - Amman, Jordan
- Center for Microfinance Research - Chennai, India
- Save the Children - Gao, Mali
- eHomemakers - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Institute of Financial Management and Research - Chennai, India
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- "Food Security, Monoculture, and the Black Box: Impact and Causal Mechanisms of the Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting, and Hillside Irrigation Program in Rwanda"
- "The New Frontier of development: how securitization and risk spreading in the microfinance industry can benefit development and the private sector"
- "Progress, Opportunity, Prosperity? A Case Study of the Digitization of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Mexico"
- "Where Peace Begins: The Role of Local People and Communities in Transforming Economies of War"
- "Collaborative Value Sharing Between Profit and Non-profit Partners in Emerging Markets: The Case of GrameenPhone in Bangladesh"
- "Additionality of the Clean Development Mechanism: Insights from Central American Case Studies"
- "The Political Potential of Israel-GCC Business Relations"
- "Maintaining Socially-Inclusive Economic Growth By Enabling Opportunity: Achieving Sustainable Development in Vietnam"
- Distributional and Welfare Effects of Including Corn into NAFTA and the Social, Economic, Political and International Repercussions for Mexico"
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- Africana Club
- Fletcher Net Impact
- Global Health Group
- Global Women
- International Development Group
- International Migration Group
- Latin America Group
- Praxis: The Fletcher Journal of Human Security
- South Asia Society
- Urbanism Society
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A Fletcher education is highly customizable, and each student may decide on a different academic trajectory to suit his or her own professional and academic goals. To get a better sense of how these individual curricular decisions can play out, we asked recent students in their final semester to talk about their goals, their classes, and the decisions made during their Fletcher career. Meet Hannah:
Pre-Fletcher Experience
- Several years designing, managing and evaluating international development programs
- Experienced in business and program strategy
- Gender integration specialist
Fields of Study
- Development Economics
- International Business
Capstone Topic
Diffusion of Innovations at the Base of the Pyramid: The Case of Mobile Money in Kenya and India
Post-Fletcher Professional Goals
I’m interested in working with companies that are developing new products and services that can help improve the lives of the poor in developing countries.
