International Economic and Financial Relations

Part A – Basics (weeks 1-3): introduction to international economics; the international economic institutions; the balance of payments. Part B – Theory and Policy of International Trade (weeks 4-8): gains from international trade; the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages; international trade and factor endowments; imperfect competition, scale economies and international trade; multinational firms and globalization; trade policy objectives and instruments; theories of economic integration. Part C – International Macroeconomics (weeks 9-12): introduction to international financial markets and the foreign exchange market; exchange rates, interest rates and prices; open-economy macroeconomic model (Mundell-Fleming); fiscal and monetray policy under fixed and flexibleexchange rates; exchange-rate regimes and balance-of-payments crises. Part D – Additional more advanced material (online lectures): the formal Ricardian model; the formal Heckscher-Ohlin model; Dornbush's overshooting model.

No formal requirement is present. However, prerequisite for the course is basic knowledge of microeconomics (consumer's theory, production theory and firm's equilibrium, perfect competition, models of imperfect competition) and of macroeconomics (national accounting in a closed economy, the simple keynesian model of equilibrium income, money demand theory, equilibrium in financial markets).

Feenstra, R. e A. Taylor (2021) International Economics, Fifth Edition

The course is taught with traditional frontal lectures with electronic slides and additional online lectures for students majoring in Economics. The teacher makes continous reference to current economic issues of the international economy and shows how some of the theoretical models can be applied to the real world. The elearning tool for the course is Moodle, available at elearning.uniroma1.it. All students must enroll in the course to perticipate to the forum and access web sources. All the learning material (like the slides) are available in the Moodle course.

Attendance is not mandatory, but highly recommended; attending students could use the midterm result to increase their final grade (according to the rules expressed in assessment section)

Written test composed of two parts: - 20 multiple-choice questions to evaluate the general knowledge and the ability to apply models to special cases. - 2 short-essay questions to evaluate the ability to apply the correct formal models to specific cases. The midterm exam and final exam have the same structure explained above. The midterm exam covers the modules A and B. The final exam is comprehensive of the whole program. The grade of the midterm exam is worth 50% for the final grade, but can be discarded if the grade in the final and comprehensive exam is higher that the midterm grade. Each test lasts about one hour.

The course is taught with traditional frontal lectures with electronic slides and additional discussion sections (highly recommended for students majoring in Economics). The teacher makes continous reference to current economic issues charcaterizing the international economy and shows how some of the theoretical models can be applied to the real world. The elearning tool for the course is Moodle, available at elearning.uniroma1.it. All students must enroll in the course to participate to the forum and access web sources. All the learning material (like the slides) are available in the Moodle course.