Outline and reading list. 

Introduction: Controversy and conversation.

• Movie: Thank You for Smoking (2005).

Religion in American life.

• Paul Bloom, “Is God an Accident?” The Atlantic Monthly, December 2005.
• Link: The Brights.
• Link: "Atheist" academics.

• Laurence R. Iannaccone, Roger Finke, and Rodney Stark, "Deregulating Religion: The Economics of Church and State," Economic Inquiry 35(2): 350-364 (April 1997).
• Laurence R. Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” The American Journal of Sociology 99(5): 1180-1211 (March 1994).

• Edward L. Glaeser and Bryce Adam Ward, “Myths and Realities of American Political Geography,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2100, January 2006.  (Read an accessible sidebar here.)

Islam and the West.

• Guest speaker: Metin Coşgel. 

• Bernard Lewis, “What Went Wrong?” The Atlantic Monthly, January 2002.

• Timur Kuran, “Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped: Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18: 71-90 (Summer 2004). 
• Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press (2006). On reserve.

• Eli Berman and Laurence R. Iannaccone, “Religious Extremism: The Good, The Bad, and The Deadly,” NBER Working Paper No. W11663,  September 2005.

The war on drugs.

• Movie: Traffic (2000).

• Jeffrey A. Miron, Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition.  Oakland: The Independent Institute Press, 2004.

• Gary S. Becker , Michael Grossman and Kevin M. Murphy, “The Economic Theory of Illegal Goods: The Case of Drugs,” NBER Working Paper No. W10976.  (Read accessible summaries here and here.)

The Wal-Mart effect.

• Movie: PBS Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America? (2004).

• Charles Fishman, “The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It's Transforming the American Economy.” Penguin, 2006.  (Excerpt on Vista.)

• Pankaj Ghemawat, “Business, Society, and the ‘Wal-Mart Effect,’” Academy of Management Perspectives 20(2): 41-43 (August 2006).  (On Vista.)

• Sebastian Mallaby, “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really,” The Washington Post, November 28, 2005; Page A21.

• Michael Strong, “Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart,” TCSDaily, August 22, 2006.

Poverty and globalization.

• Guest speaker: Samson Kimenyi.

• Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Penguin, 2005.

• William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Penguin, 2006.

• David Dollar, “Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3333, September 19, 2004.

• Link: The Copenhagen Consensus.
• Tyler Cowen, Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
• Link: Mine Your Own Business.
• Lydia Polgreen, "In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert," The New York Times, February 11, 2007. (On Vista.) [Note the crucial but underplayed point that local farmers now have property rights in trees, which had previously been owned by the government of Niger (and thus unowned in practice).]

• Link: Video.

Global warming.

• Movie: An Inconvenient Truth (2006).

• Richard S. Lindzen, “Don't Believe the Hype,” WSJ.com, Sunday, July 2, 2006.
• Gregg Easterbrook, “Ask Mr. Science: The Moral Flaws of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth,” Slate Magazine, May 24, 2006.

• Gregg Easterbrook: “Case Closed: The Debate about Global Warming is Over,” Working Paper, Brookings Institution, May 2006.

• Congressional Budget Office, Evaluating the Role of Prices and R&D in Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions, September 2006.
• The Fraser Institute, Independent Summary for Policymakers: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. February 2007.
• Video: "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (British documentary).
• Link: Interview with Dr. S. Fred Singer by Nova on the Issue of Global Warming, March 12, 2000.