My name is Ömer Özak. I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at Southern Methodist University and a Research Fellow at IZA.

My research explores the deep historical origins and long-run consequences of some of the most fundamental cultural, human and economic characteristics that are at the roots of contemporary comparative economic development across countries, regions and ethnic groups. In particular, I study how the interaction of bio-geographical, cultural, institutional, and technological factors have determined the evolution of societies in the course of human history.

This website contains material for my economic growth and comparative development course for the Ph.D. at SMU. All the materials and files for the course and website are available in the GitHub repository. Students are encouraged to clone the material to their computers and play with it.

Found a bug or error? Report it via Github issues. You can also submit any corrections or improvements via a pull request.