Monash University

Leader(s): Dr Simon Angus

Offered

Clayton First semester 2009 (Day)

Synopsis

This unit examines the process of globalisation and its effect on the living conditions of the world's population. Methodologies and toolsets that economics distinctively provides to address these issues will be the common approach of investigation. The unit begins by building an institutional methodology which is then applied to the different economic systems that have been prominent players in the 20th century and continue on in the 21st. Those systems include capitalism (and its variants), socialism and communism. From this platform, globalisation in the pre-WWII years is studied, as both a process and as an institution itself in reference to the secular growth in specialisation, division of labour and trade. Third, the unit asks why some economic systems (and their environments) have prospered, whilst others have declined by turning its attention to disparate experiences of globalisation such as prosperity, poverty, environmental degradation.

Objectives

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

• to introduce economic analysis as a key tool in understanding global movements of

capital, labour and goods and services

• to use this analysis to identify the underlying causes of economic prosperity, poverty

and environmental degradation in the modern global economy

• to distinguish between key economic systems of the modern era
• to critically analyse the sources of globalisation at the beginning of the 20th century and in the modern era
• to equip students with the economic tools to assess current ideas that aim to alleviate global poverty and secure environmental sustainability.

Assessment

Within semester assessment : 50%
Examination (2 hours): 50%

Contact hours

3 hours per week