My name is Cory Smith and I am a new professor in the AREC department. I wanted to spread the word about a course I'll be teaching for the first time: Agricultural Development, Population Growth and the Environment (AREC445). In this course, we will discuss the "big picture" of why the last few centuries of economic development have been so uneven around the world. The material will center on changes in agrarian economies on topics such as:
- Do natural resources, political history, or some other factor best explain why some countries are rich and others poor?
- Does an unequal distribution of land wealth hurt productivity or can it be efficient?
- How will the forces of new technologies and climate change shape and reshape agriculture?
