B028888 - CHALLENGES IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY

The course will be taught in English

The course focuses the main trends of the world economy in the last 30 years through an analysis of case studies at the national and macro-regional level

Attending students: students have to rely on the notes taken in class and the slides prepared by the instructor. Readings, other material (for instance the topics for the group presentations) will be put at disposal at the beginning of the course, and visible on the Moodle platform of the course, which is accessible only to attending students.
Non-attending students:1) Robert Gilpin, The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century, Princeton UP, 2011 (first four chapters)
2) Luciano Segreto, L’economia mondiale dopo la Guerra fredda, Bologna, il Mulino, 2018

Familiarize with the main issues concerning the international economic and social consequences of the globalization process.

The course will teach how to use database and other official sources to analyse the world economy. Student will be learning how to use skills and instruments permitting to capture the most relevant aspects of today's process of globalization.

Knowledge of contemporary history and the history of international relations for the period following the end of Cold War; basic knowledge of international economics and the theory of international relations. Students will be offered the opportunity to intervene during the course through question time and class-presentations that will be later discussed and evaluated together by the instructor and the students. This phase of the knowledge and comprehension process will enhance also the capacity to organize presentations and to speak in public.

Lectures will be offered using a srong interaction approach. Students will be required to read short articles dealings with the topics in order to have a proper opportunity of direct intervention during the lectures

The list of the readings will be available on the Moodle platform as well as the list of the topics for the groups' presentations. The dates for the presentations will be during the last week of the course.

For attending students, the exam grades are the result of a series of different evaluations. The group presentation will receive an evaluation of 20% of final mark. Moreover, the students are requested to an individual paper of 7-8 pages double line space (15-16,000 characters, approx. 3,000 words) on a topic selected by the student and connected with the course (value 25% of final mark). The instructor must approve the proposal before starting researches. Students must send by email their paper no later than seven days before the date chosen for the exam. The final written exam is a two hours exam divided into two sections: the first part has 20 multiple-choice questions (value 15% of the final mark) and four open questions the student will select among six questions (value 40% of the final mark).
Non-attending students are requested to write a paper of 15 pages (30,000 bytes, approx. 6,000 words), footnotes included, bibliography not included. The paper must be sent by email seven days before the exam's date. The exam is a written exam based on the books by Robert Gilpin, The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century, Princeton UP, 2011 (first four chapters) and Luciano Segreto, L’economia mondiale dopo la Guerra fredda, Bologna, il Mulino, 2018. For those who cannot fluently read Italian the second text is John Ravenhill, Global Political Economy, Oxford UP, 2011

1. Introduction
2. What do they have in common: explaining the myriad faces of globalization?
3. An overview of the international economic scenario at the end of Cold War and the unexpected recovery of the US
4. Japan. The cost of the challenging US and the lost decades
5. The European Hybrid. Varieties of Capitalism in the Old Continent
6. After Saigon’s fall: the triumph of capitalism in Asia
7. B for Brazil or for bluff?
8. Russia: from socialism to authoritarian capitalism via de-industrialization?
9. India between poverty and high-tech
10. China: the new giant or the partial power?
11. Africa: not anymore the lost Continent?
12. The world of commodities: producers vs. consumers?
13. The financialization of the world economy
14. Conclusions: pandemic and the globalization process