03.184.4140 International Trade: Theory and Policy

Lehrende/r: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Konstantin Wacker

Veranstaltungsart: Vorlesung

Anzeige im Stundenplan: International Trade

Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | -

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

The course addresses Bachelor students in economics. Students should have attended classes in intermediate microeconomics. The course language is English.

Inhalt:
The first and main part of this course gives an overview of global trade patterns and discusses reasons for trade, its benefits and effects. The second part covers trade policies, including the role of international institutions and trade agreements. The course provides an introduction to the basic theories of international trade. Beyond classical models of perfect competition, the course also covers more recent models involving imperfect competition and heterogeneous firms. It supplements the theory with empirical evidence and applications to current policy issues.

Among other aspects, the course will address questions like:

• Why does trade take place? What are the welfare implications?
• Why do different countries export different products?
• Why do some countries trade similar products?
• What are the distributional effects of trade?
• What role do firms, migration, and foreign direct investment play?
• Are trade liberalizations always a good thing?
• If trade is a good thing, should exports be promoted by subsidies?
• Can interest groups lobby for certain trade policies?

At the end of the course, students will be able to describe the key features of international trade relations. They will be familiar with the basic models of international trade and their empirical validity. Students will be able to address current policy questions related to international trade with theoretically grounded arguments. They will be able to assess and discuss the impact of different trade policies, and they can evaluate the role of institutions which regulate international trade relations.

Empfohlene Literatur:

• Feenstra, Robert C. and Taylor, Alan M. International economics, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers, 2011
  
• Krugman, Paul R.; Obstfeld, Maurice and Marc J. Melitz. International economics: theory and policy, 9th edition. Addison-Wesley, 2011
  
• Melitz, Marc J. and Daniel Trefler (2012): “Gains from Trade when Firms Matter.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 26(2): 91-118
  

Zusätzliche Informationen:
Please check my website for further information, literature, and dates:

There will be a biweekly tutorial reviewing, discussing and deepening the concepts introduced in the lecture using problem sets