Economics

This course provides an international comparative perspective on the analysis of contemporary labor markets. It focuses on applying labor economics to important policy issues in the areas of labor supply and demand, wages, migration, multinational firms, international trade, and automation. The course provides a review of how economists address most recent trends in international labor markets.

This course covers the fundamental vocabulary and syntax of economic and commercial French and develops cultural skills specific to the business world. It analyzes and produces simple and complex professional documents dealing with economics. The first part of the course covers the Economic World and discusses economics, economic agents, needs, competition, the market, and price setting. The second part of the course discusses the Business world, including the company, classification, goods and services, economic sectors, the shift toward a service-based economy, and the chocolate market. Finally, the last part of the course covers Company Personnel: company structure, types of organizational charts, the different departments within a company, and hierarchy.

This course provides an understanding of social and political aspects of economic dynamics and functioning as influenced by globalized forces. It is a study of how economies are integrating and disintegrating amidst social and political changes that take place in the global communities.

The course develops a systematic understanding of the key areas of international economics: trade, investment and finance, and how they impact each other. In the first part of the semester, particular attention is given to theoretical analyses of trade. Linked to this core are several specific issues which are studied in the second part of the semester: international factor movements; income distribution and trade; economic integration; multinational enterprises; and environmental policies. The course pays special attention to the economy of the hosting country and the European Union and regularly refer to the economic, political and financial relationships between the latter and the USA. Lectures are complemented with field trips, guest lectures and workshops in which theories are applied to real case studies. Throughout the course there is a focus on Rome as a case study for International Economics, with study visits to Trajan’s Market, Bulgari, the working-class social housing of Garbatella, the Museum of the Bank of Italy and the European Union Centre. Guest lecturers from the FAO and WFP, and representatives from the EU are invited to share the role and place of sustainability in shaping the future economic organization.

The rise of China has significant impacts on the world economy. This course examines the major economic issues in the rise of China, the challenges of China to the global economic order, and the effects of Mainland-Hong Kong economic integration on both parties. Well-known research economists and experts from the finance sector and public organizations are invited to discuss and analyze major issues in the economic cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland, e.g. Hong Kong’s integration with the Pearl River Delta and the Mainland, the status of Hong Kong as China’s trading, financial, and services hub, and the impacts on the global economy of the Hong Kong-Mainland economic nexus. Students are advised to take ECON2011 and 2021 before taking this course.

This course studies how trade and financial linkages with the rest of the world affect the performance of an open economy’s macroeconomic variables, such as interest rates, exchange rate, GDP, the price level. The main topics include balance of payments, foreign exchange market, international linkages of interest rates and price level, exchange rate models, international monetary systems, and exchange rate crises. Prerequisites: ECON1210: Introductory Microeconomics, and ECON1220: Introductory Macroeconomics

This course presents key theoretical models and related empirical evidence that shape our understanding of how labor markets work. The focus is mostly on the micro-level and the lectures build around the evidence provided by the most recent empirical research in the field. The following topics are typically covered: introduction to labor economics, labor supply, labor demand, labor market equilibrium, human capital, migration, labor market discrimination, and unemployment.

This course focuses on understanding the basic methodological principles of the science of Economics. It starts with an introduction to the history of the notion of Economics, and then it specializes in the basic economic thought throughout the centuries. The second part of the course focuses in the general philosophy of science with an interest in the philosophy of social sciences. The course discusses in depth the basic methodological principles of the major Economic theories and the philosophers/scientists who evolved these theories (i.e. Rousseau, Hume, Locke, Hobbes, Mill, Proudhon, Smith, Ricardo, Marx).

This course builds on introductory macroeconomics and analyzes the main economic problems at the aggregate level of an economy in the long term (economic growth) and in the short term (economic fluctuations) using simple models. Topics include the main determinants of income levels and the analysis of international discrepancies in per capita income and productive capacity in the long term. Students examine the problem of fluctuations in the main macroeconomic variables around their long-term levels and the dynamics of inflation, interest rates, unemployment, and the economic policy instruments that can be used to stabilize the economy.

This course examines the experimental method in economics and explains how it differs from methods used in other social sciences. The course analyzes widely cited articles to illustrate best practices in experimental design and implementation. It evaluates the advantages and limitations of experiments relative to other empirical social science approaches, including the analysis of administrative data. The course also demonstrates how experiments test the robustness of the homo economicus assumption of a rational, self-interested decision-maker that underlies many economic models.