The Challenge of World Poverty (MIT 14.73, Spring 2011)

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, who later shared the 2019 economics Nobel, teach development economics as a set of open questions: does growth help the poor, is microfinance overrated, does foreign aid help or hinder, and should development be left to markets or to NGOs. The 2011 lectures are on MIT OpenCourseWare, and a newer MITx Online version is free to audit. It is the course on this list that most often shows the field arguing with itself, because each question is settled by evidence from particular places rather than by first principles. Assignments are essays rather than problem sets, which makes it one of the more approachable picks for readers without mathematics.