Teaching

Teaching Spring 2025 & Taught Spring 2024: Syllabus and Reading List

Description: 

This course introduces you to the central tools and issues in international trade. We start by analyzing the sources of gains from trade, trade patterns, and their impact on factor prices and growth. We draw on classical approaches but also more recent ones that emphasize the role of firms and trade costs. Next, we focus on trade policy, its determinants, effects, and role in international agreements such as the WTO and the European Union. A central objective is to learn the theoretical concepts and empirical tools used in international trade and how their interaction provides insights into various important economic outcomes.

Taught Fall 2024 & Fall 2023 

Description:

The post-WWI wave of globalization has slowed since 2008. Trade liberalization has actually been reversed by the decisions of countries such as the UK, to leave the EU, and the US, to start a trade war. The World Trade Organization faces existential challenges, which further increase trade policy uncertainty. The main goal of this course is to provide you with key economic concepts, tools and skills necessary to understand and evaluate these and other important trade policy issues. We will use a combination of lectures, research, group presentations, and policy simulations to analyze specific questions on topics of your choice, as well as broader questions such as the one below. We will address these in the context of contemporary issues.

• What are the economic impacts of trade policies on consumers, firms, and workers?

• Why do countries pursue trade wars and agreements and what are their impacts?

• What are deep trade integration agreements and why do they address innovation, national security, and the environment?

• What are the optimal trade policies for a given objective?

The course should be valuable if you plan a career in international business, diplomacy, academia, or any profession affected by international trade.  

Taught Spring 2023

Description: 

This seminar is designed to prepare students to carry out methodologically sound research at the cutting edge of international political economy and political economy. To achieve this purpose, the course will focus on the writing and presentation of a senior thesis. Its goal is to teach students to evaluate scholarly literature, assess its merits and limitations systematically, and make progressive contributions to the field. We will analyze contributions to ongoing debates and research programs using a set of research design questions as a guide. Students are expected to apply the same critical skills when writing and presenting their own research in class. Student presentations and papers will be evaluated using the same research design criteria. Greater understanding of the core works in the field is a positive externality in this course, but its focus will be on the writing, presentation and evaluation of senior theses.