Economics and Finance

General goals The aim of the course is to illustrate the basic concepts of International Economics. In the frontal lessons, the exposition of theoretical issues is integrated with the description of the main features of contemporary economies in a globalized world. The first part of the course analyzes the theory of international trade (mainly based on microeconomic tools), which studies the causes, the structure, and the volume of international trade (that is: which goods are imported and exported by countries, why and their volumes), the gains from international trade and their distribution across countries, the determination of relative prices in open economies, the effects of tariff barriers and quotas, the effects of international trade on international specialization of production and consumption in each country. The second part examines the theory of intentional financial relations (mainly based on macroeconomic tools), which studies the balance of payment problems in a monetary open economy (and, in particular, the automatic mechanisms and the economic policy interventions for the balance of payment equilibrium), the exchange rate regimes, the exchange rate determination, the monetary unions, the international liquidity problems, and related issues of the international monetary system (exchange rate crises, external debt crises, sovereign debt crises, speculative attacks in the international markets). Specific goals More in detail, the course aims at providing the student with: A) the knowledge of the main theories of international trade and the mechanisms of the international trade policy; B) the knowledge of the main theories of international monetary economics and the mechanisms of the international monetary and fiscal policies; C) the ability to apply the theoretical and empirical tools to the numerous actual cases from the contemporary world that are discussed in class; D) the ability to analyze the complex globalization process that has involved the world economy in recent years; E) the tools to evaluate the most important aspects in the recent economic and financial international crises and understand the underlying mechanisms.