Lecture
Vorlesung, SWS:2, VL Number: 34020
Lecturer
Description
Recent growth in economic integration has brought international trade issues to the forefront of both economics and society. This course is designed as an introduction into the economics of international trade and factor mobility. It provides an overview over the most important forms of internationalization and discusses their economic consequences. You will learn why countries may benefit from participating in the international division of labor through international trade based on comparative advantage or specialization gains. You will also develop an understanding why these gains from trade are unevenly distributed between different parts of society, say workers and capital owners or entrepreneurs, and why some people may indeed loose from globalization, while others gain. The course will offer alternative explanations for the pattern of trade, including traditional theories of comparative advantage as well as modern theories that focus on increasing returns to scale and imperfect competition. A further important goal is to understand the workings of international trade policy through tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The course will explain the effects of such policies on aggregate welfare of countries, as well as on the well-being of different individuals, like workers and capital owners. In addition, we shall also develop explanations for why governments behave as they do, imposing or reducing tariffs on some goods, but not on others. Finally, the course also identifies international policy-spillovers, meaning that one country’s trade policy may have consequences for economic welfare in other countries
Both the course and the exam will be in English.
Click here to enroll for the e-learning course.
Table of contents
Part I: Introduction
- Chapter 1: The World Economy
- Chapter 2: Global Economic Crisis
Part II: Comparative Advantage
- Chapter 3: Classical Trade: Technology
- Chapter 4: Production Structure
- Chapter 5: Factor Prices
- Chapter 6: Production Volume
- Chapter 7: Factor Abundance
- Chapter 8: Trade Policy
Part III: Competitive Advantage
- Chapter 9: Imperfect Competition
- Chapter 10: Intra-Industry Trade
Note
The course will take place weekly on Monday, 12 – 2 p.m.
Detailed information can be found on the E-Learning server.
Recommended Literature
- van Marrewijk, C. (2012): International Economics: Theory, Application, and Policy, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press.
Additional Literature
- Krugman, P. R. and M. Obstfeld (2009): International Economics: Theory and Policy, Pearson International Edition.
- R. C. Feenstra and A. Taylor (2008): International Economics, Worth Publishers.
- McLaren, J. (2013), International Trade, Wiley.
Exercise Course
An exercise course will support students in handling different modeling approaches. We will split up the exercise course in several groups in order to guarantee a close mentoring of students. It is strongly recommended to attend this exercise course in order to pass the exam.
Grading
There will be a 60 minutes exam at the end of the semester. Exam questions will be given in English, answers may be given in German or English.
This course will be uploaded.
Exercise
Übung, SWS:1, VL Number: 34021
Lecturer
Philipp Meier
Stefan Kornitzky
Description
The exercise course is closely linked to the lecture and supports the students in handling different modelling approaches. The corresponding exercises will be provided on the elearning server of the University of Bayreuth. It might be useful to prepare the exercises in advance to the course. It is strongly recommended to attend this course as well as the lecture in order to pass the exam successfully.
The course will be held in English and will take place weekly. The exercise course will be split in two groups in order to guarantee a close mentoring of the students:
Group 1: Tue, 3 p.m. – 4 p.m.,
Group 2: Tue, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.,
Group 3: Thu, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.,
Group 4: Thu, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.,
Click here to enroll for the e-learning course.
This course will be uploaded.