Development Economics (MA)

The University of Northern British Columbia offers a full-time MA in Development Economics, focusing on economic development issues in low and middle-income countries. The program covers core courses in Globalization, Macroeconomic Policy, Applied Econometrics, and includes interdisciplinary approaches. Students will engage with topics like poverty and inequality while completing a thesis or project. Graduates will be prepared for roles in government, international agencies, and the private sector.
MA in Development Economics: Economic development remains a critical issue for more than three-quarters of the world’s population who reside in countries classified as “low income” or “middle income.” The causes and consequences of economic development remain contested issues. This degree considers the changing global, regional and national contexts for economic development; the policy lessons that can be learned from comparative studies; and the tools required to enable development economists to contribute to the development process.

The enormous transformations that are taking place today in the countries of the South provide the focus of the degree. Students are challenged to analyses topics such as the reasons for the emergence of new economic powerhouses in the South such as China and India as well as the enduring issues of poverty and inequality.

The program includes core courses in Globalization and Development, Macroeconomic Policy for Development, Applied Econometrics and Poverty, Inequality and Development. The Economics Department also has particular expertise in the areas of Environmental Economics and Health Economics and offers electives in these areas. Students are also required to complete a MA Thesis or an MA Project which allows students to apply the tools of economic analysis to a development issue.

Economic development cannot be studied in isolation from other dimensions of development. An understanding of poverty, for example, requires not only economic analysis, but also an understanding of the insights provided by other social and health sciences. The training of a development economist must therefore expose students to interdisciplinary approaches to development.

By covering theory, policy and applied analysis, as well as integrating insights from other disciplines, the MA program well equips students to work as economists in government and international agencies as well as in the private sector.