Trade and Multinationals

Course goals

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:

• Use the main theories to explain the nature of international economic relations;
• Identify the potential costs and benefits of international trade and international factor mobility;
• Analyse government policies with respect to trade flows and to the effects of various trade policies;
• Evaluate the soundness of trade policies;
• Use the main theories to generate new ideas or report new insights into a country’s trade patterns or policies.

 

Content

An important feature of the 21^st century is the growing interdependency between countries. Countries are more closely linked through exchange of goods and services, financial flows, factor mobility, and investment than previous centuries. This course studies the causes and consequences of these international linkages, which is called globalisation. Understanding the real part of the process of globalisation requires knowledge of the economic forces underlying international trade flows, factor mobility, and the role of international and multinational firms in the organisation of these forces.

The course covers classical trade theories, new trade theories, and the practice of globalisation. It covers key aspects of globalisation such as international trade, the multinational enterprise, foreign direct investment (fragmentation, outsourcing), geopolitics and geo-economic fragmentation. The main theories with respect to international trade will be analysed at length. Special attention will be given to the implications of trade for the distribution of income. We also analyse the role of trade policies, which are used to stimulate as well as frustrate the international exchange of goods and services, both at the national and the supranational level (WTO; regional trade blocs).

Academic skills
This course focuses on the following academic skills:

Communication skills

• Being able to present the content of an article or the results of an (instructed) research. 
• Being able to provide useful and correct feedback on a presentation or small paper. 
• Being able to accept and process feedback from others on a presentation or small assignment. 

Academic reasoning

• Thinking conceptually, thinking in terms of theory.
• Asking critical questions, having a curiosity-driven and critical attitude.
• Analysing questions from different perspectives.
• Identifying links between problems. 

Social responsibility

• Being able to work effectively in teams for a specific project with limited intervention or instruction. 

Effort requirements
Attendance (80%) and active participation in the tutorials: students present and discuss the weekly assignments

Course repeaters
Students, who signed up for the course in previous years, did not drop the course in time and failed the course, will participate in the course repeaters programme.
With respect to the teaching format, this implies that course repeaters:

• Can follow the regular lectures;
• Cannot follow the regular tutorials;
• Don't have effort requirements;
• Will have the possibility to follow a special tutorial before each exam.

With respect to the assessment method, this implies that course repeaters:

• Have a final exam (100%).
• Have a possibility for a supplementary or replacement exam if the unrounded final grade is higher than or equal to 4.0.

Courses that build on this course
Development and Growth (ECB3GD)

In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.