MKT3008Index

ACE1037 Global Economics

[Last Update: May 2017]

Timetable: Semester 2 2017.
Tuesdays, 1300 - 1400, KGVI.LT5
Thursdays, 1300 - 1400, BSTC.1.46
NOTES
Final Examination (2 hours) 24th May, 2017, 2.00 - 4.00pm, Lindisfarne Room
You will be asked to answer TWO (2) Questions from Six (6).
(Note: this is NOT the same as last year's exam)
Please note - trial answers will not be appraised and returned if submitted after close of business, Friday, April 28^thAmmendments to Notes:
See Nordhaus 2017 and, especially, 2017a for updates on SCC (Section 7)
Questions etc. to me.

Aim: to provide students with understandings of, and analytical frameworks for, the processes and patterns of global economics and the implications and challenges for the future.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes: At the end of the module students should be able to:

Demonstrate a clear understanding of global patterns and processes, and the implications for markets, economic growth and development, and international integration;

Understand the reasons for, and roles of, international trade in economic development.

Understand the principles of macroeconomic management, finance and forex markets and apply these principles to analysis of recent global economic events.

Intended Skill Outcomes: By the end of the module students should be able to:

Think and analyse independently and critically the processes, concepts and consequences of global economics.

Question received wisdom or assumptions regarding globalisation.

Identify contrasting arguments and offer appropriate evidence to debate the major challenges facing the world in the 21st Century

Assessment:
This 10 credit course (100 hours of student engagement and study) is assessed by a single, closed book University examination of 2 hours, held in May. This paper will consist of six questions, of which you will be required to answer two. Specimen questions will be supplied before the end of the course, and students are invited to submit trial answers for appraisal (NOT Assessment) by the course leader (Prof David Harvey). Please note - trial answers will not be appraised and returned if submitted after close of business, Friday, April 28^{th

Specimen Questions:

1.    Why is international trade important and how is it changing?

2.    How and why do governments try to manage economies?

3.    How do foreign exchange markets work and why are they important?

4.    How did the 2008 credit crunch happen and what should we learn?

5.    Why did China not lead the industrial revolution and what does this tell us about economic development?

6.    What should we do about climate change and why?}

Modus Operandi:
The course is delivered as two one-hour lectures each week for 8 weeks, during which time every attempt will be made to provide time for comments and questions. It is supported by the material presented on this web-page, and the references contained therein. Otherwise, you are strongly advised to read and pursue this material in your own time. Questions and clarifications can be sought from me via e-mail, and any general answers or suggestions will be circulated or dealt with in the class. There will be 2 revision and discussion classes held after the Easter Break, in the Thursday slot, beginning Thursday May 4th.

Of the 100 hours associated with this class, 16 will be used for lectures, 2 revision/discussion classes and 2 for the examination, leaving 80 hours (6 hrs/week) for private study. Exam answers will be marked according to standards which assume this level of input from you - simply regurgitating lecture notes will NOT be enough to obtain a good mark! You will need to think and read about the issues.

The course textbook is Tony Cleaver, Understanding the World Economy, 4th edn., Routledge. However, the lectures will not follow the structure and chapters of this book. Where necessary and useful, the course notes will refer to specific sections and chapters of this book.

Some General Global Economy sites:
IMF globalisation page.
The Economist: Globalisation topics page.

Data sites:
UKDataService (UK's largest collection of social, economic and population data for research and teaching purposes covering a range of different disciplines - also contains IMF, World Bank and OECD data (under 'International Macrodata'))
IMF data
OECDstats
UN National Accounts
UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) Stats.
UNIDO (UN Industrial Development Organisation) Stats
World Bank Data
UK Government Statistics

Other 'Interesting' Links.
To measure "Globalisation"? Try the KOF Index of Globalisation
An Economical picture of the history of Globalisation since AD1.
Matthew White's Historical atlas of the 20th Century is a fascinating site.

Statistics that change your world view. Hans Rosling ('inventor' of GapMinder World)

A (personal) Synopsis:
What is Global about Economics? Two major features:
1) the underlying theory, which, despite current disarray in macroeconomic thinking, is based on widely accepted principles - the conceptual framework and basic data are now globally accepted;
2) regional and national economies are more closely integrated now than perhaps they even have been, frequently interpreted as 'globalisation'
These features raise a number of questions, such as: Are 'globalisation' and global economics facts (to be put up or coped with - or fought, or escaped from), or phenomena (to be shaped, moulded, and perhaps even controlled)? Is 'technology' a tool or a tyrant?
Globalisation is clearly big - global and complex, and is obviously both assisted by and a product of technical 'progress' and economic structural change. So, we are going to need a big picture, and the picture will necessarily be highly simplified (we will have to be economical with the 'truth'and the 'facts').
Globalisation, whatever else it is, is a product of our collective social histories and processes, where 'social' includes here political, economic and cultural. How these social (economic, political, cultural) systems work is a critical question, though this module has to focus on the economic mechanisms and processes.
I suggest that it might help to think about these systems as processes of social evolution.
The key mechanism or institutional rule and norm through which social evolution works is, I suggest, pretty simple:
Do what you like and see if you can get away with it.
Economics, at least as far as some of its fundamental propositions are concerned, can be seen as a set of theorems which mimic natural evolution - survival of the fittest, and the co-evolution of social environments and political climates with the evolution of firms and families - those best fitted to current circumstances and contexts survive and replicate, those which don't, don't.
The key difference between social and natural evolution is that the criteria for survival and replication are endogenous in social evolution (we make the rules), whereas in natural evolution, the rules are exogenous, given by the laws of bio-physics.