MKT3008Index

MKT3000: Globalisation: Patterns, Processes & Challenges

[Last Update: 22.03.13]

Timetable: Semester 2 2013.
Tuesdays, 1000 - 1100, Armstrong Bldg. 2.16
Thursdays, 1000 - 1100, Armstrong Bldg. 2.16

Examination (3 hours) timetabled for May 25^th 09.30 - 12.30, Location t.b.a
Please note - trial answers will not be appraised and returned if submitted after close of business, Friday, May 3^rdExam feedback below.

Aim: to provide students with understandings of, and analytical frameworks for, the processes and patterns of globalization (international trade, communication and interaction), 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 globalization patterns and processes, and the implications for markets, economic development and growth, and international governance

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

Understand the reasons for, and effects of, trade protection and anti-globalisation movements.

Apply globalization concepts to understand and critically evaluate real world challenges, issues and prospects.

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 globalisation.

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

Outline:
The syllabus is structured so to provide the grounds on which the following questions can be answered:
1.    What is Globalization and when did it start?
2.    What and where are the major sources of information and statistics related to and identifying patterns of globalisation?
3.    What do these tell us about growth and development?
4.    What are the major economic processes and mechanisms underlying globalisation?
5.    What are the major global institutions governing globalisation?
6.    What are the current conditions and prospects for economic development and further globalisation?
7.    What are the major global challenges of the 21st Century?
8.    What are the major critiques of present patterns and processes of globalisation and what are the implications for the future?

Assessment:
This 20 credit course (200 hours of student engagement and study) is assessed by a single, closed book University examination of 3 hours, held in May. Specimen questions will be supplied before the end of the first semester, 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, May 3^rd

Exam Feedback - June 2013:
35% of the class achieved a first class mark on this paper - ≥70%; 26.5% scored a 2.1 (60 - 69); 31% achieved a 2.2 grade (50 - 59). The full distribution is shown below.

Distribution of final marks

The average mark was 60%, with a standard deviation of 16.
The average marks, and standard deviations, by question were as follows

As can be seen, no one answered question 3, while the best answered question was 4 and the poorest answers were given for question 6. More than half of the class answered questions 4 & 5, with question 2 being the next most popular choice (37%). Apart fron question 3, the least popular question was 8 (9%).

Those students taking advantage of submitting trial answers typically performed at least as well as their trial answers indicated, and mostly better. The weak answers were generally incomplete, superficial and poorly structured, while the best answers showed a coherent and comprehensive appreciation of the question and provided a generally critically argued answer.

Modus Operandi:
The course is delivered as two one-hour lectures each week for the first 15 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.

So, of the 200 hours associated with this class, 35 will be used for lectures, and 3 for the examination, leaving 162 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.

Survey Results (61/110 students in 2010/11): "Globalisation" is largely an "x" phenomenon: 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree.

Technical

Economic

Political

Cultural

Sociological

Environmental

Brand New

Average score"

3.7

4.0

3.0

3.3

3.0

3.3

St Dev

0.8

0.7

0.8

1.1

1.0

1.3

1.0

Some General Globalisation sites:
Globalisation Timeline Open Project - the Gold Mercury You Tube site.
IMF globalisation page.
The Economist: Globalisation topics page.
To measure "Globalisation"? Try the KOF Index of Globalisation, which combines measures of Economic, Political and Social (Cultural) indicators to generate an overall index (produced by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute)
And some Incidentals:
An Economical picture of the history of Globalisation since AD1.
Facebook friendships mirroring the age of empires?
Who is doing the innovating? (See OECD, Innovation Trends, 2010)
The Information Age and Digital Future?
Statistics that change your world view. Hans Rosling ('inventor' of GapMinder World)
McKinsey's recent (2012) report on Global Urbanisation, and a graphic representation of the world's shifting centre of 'economic gravity'
New (2013) OECD/WTO analysis of Global Trade by Value Added, rather than final value.
OECD Compendium of Productivity Indices (2012)
OECD Factbook of Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, 2013.

A (personal) Synopsis:
Is 'globalisation' a fact (to be put up or coped with - or fought, or escaped from), or a phenomenon (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'
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 do these social (economic, political, cultural) systems work?
We do not know, but the most commonly acceptable proposition is that they work through processes of social evolution.
The key formula or 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.