GECO 6252 International Trade
GECO 6264 Money and Banking
Fall 2010. Three credits.
Spring 2011. Three credits.
Arslan Razmi
Edward Nell
This course covers the major theories of international trade, including mercantilist, Ricardian, neoclassical, neo-Ricardian, technology gap, unequal exchange, and Marxian models. It focuses on determinants of the direction of trade and potential gains from trade and on the links between international trade, income distribution, employment, and economic growth. Emphasis is placed on empirical tests of the theories. Other topics include intra-industry and intra-firm trade, strategic trade policy, outsourcing, tradeinvestment linkages, and contemporary commercial policy issues, including labor and environmental standards. Prerequisite: GECO 6190 or permission of the instructor.
The course will cover the fundamentals of Money and Banking, seen in historical perspective. Over time the institutions of money and credit have changed and developed, leading to different relationships to markets. Money worked differently in the pre-capitalist world, and its working has changed further as capitalism has developed from the Craft Economy of family firms and family farms to the world of modern industry and hi-tech. These changes will be explored together with the development of monetary theory. Banking systems also developed historically, reflecting many of the same pressures that led to the development of industry, and the fundamentals of banking have changed over time. This likewise has implications for the theory of credit and interest.
GECO 6253 International Finance Spring 2011. Three credits.
GECO 6266 Financial Modeling and Financial Econometrics
Willi Semmler
Not offered 2010–11. Three credits.
This course is devoted to studying international monetary economics and finance theoretically and empirically. We begin with a historical overview of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods system, and current international monetary regimes and currency systems. We then examine theoretically and empirically the balance of trade and balance of payment accounts and their adjustments. Exchange rate systems and exchange rate determination and adjustments are also studied, with particular attention to empirical studies on exchange rate dynamics and their impact on macroeconomics. Special emphasis is given to the study of international monetary and financial arrangements, the financial sector, and financial instability and monetary and fiscal policy issues. Topics include issues of exchange rate volatility and its impact on the real and financial sector, foreign debt, capital flows, currency runs, and international portfolio choice; World Bank and IMF policies and issues concerning financial market liberalization; international financial regulations; and international financial architecture.
TBA
GECO 6258 Seminar in Development Economics Not offered 2010–11. Three credits. Lopamudra Banerjee
This seminar explores the interconnections between income inequality, poverty, and economic vulnerability. We start with the microeconomics of welfare analysis to examine how resources are distributed amongst identical agents who have the freedom to choose. We examine how inequality arises in the presence of asymmetries of power, differences in identities (race, caste, gender, and ethnicity), disparities in geographic settlements and incomplete information (risks and uncertainties). In this, we discuss how inequality, deprivation, and vulnerability constitute each other. We present the alternative measures of poverty, inequality, and vulnerability; and study how these concepts relate to different countries and communities. In addition, we examine the issues of efficiency, equity, and justice that arise in the context of income distribution.
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Applications of financial theory and new financial instruments require new econometric tools. This course first reviews the basic theories of derivatives pricing and estimation and then deals with volatility dynamics, nonparametric estimation, and Kalman filters. GECO 6269 Financial Economics Not offered 2010–11. Three credits. Willi Semmler
This course studies the interaction of the financial markets and economic activity. The financial markets to be considered encompass the money and bond market, credit market, stock market, and foreign exchange market. Economic activity is described by the activity of households, firms, banks, governments, and countries. The course shows how economic activity affects the financial markets and how the financial markets, financial market volatility, and instability feed back into economic activity. Emphasis is given to theory and empirical work on credit and derivative markets, bond prices and yield curves, stock prices and returns, CAPM and static and dynamic portfolio theory, and consumption- and production-based asset pricing theory. Further topics include the impact of the volatility of asset prices on economic activity, the economics of risk, and financial fragility and crises. Reading for the course includes Semmler’s Asset Prices, Booms, and Recessions (2003, rev. 2006). Prerequisite: GECO 6191 or permission of the instructor. GECO 6270 Labor Economics I Fall 2010. Three credits. Teresa Ghilarducci
This course is the first of a two-semester sequence that provides an intensive analysis of the labor process and labor markets, considering neoclassical, Marxian, and institutionalist approaches to the field of labor economics. Major course sections include the history of thought in labor economics; the organization of production and the determination of labor demand; the structure of the household and the determination of labor supply; the operation of labor markets; the determination of wages, income, and employment; the generation of inequalities and the persistence of discrimination; the determination and impact of collective bargaining; and the theory and history of the labor movement and labor organizations. Prerequisites: GECO 6190 and GECO 5104, or their equivalents. Some familiarity with calculus and econometrics is recommended.