Undergraduate - UnitECF3921 - Economics of international trade

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Business and Economics
Organisational Unit	Department of Economics
Offered	Not offered in 2015
Coordinator(s)	Dr Vinod Mishra

Synopsis

The theory of international trade in an applied context. The students will be introduced to the understanding of forces that shape the trade interactions between various nations. Starting from the earlier theories of mercantilism and comparative advantage, students will navigate their way to the modern theories of trade in partial and general equilibrium framework. They will study the effect of economic growth on trade and the impact of trade in determining the living standards of people, factors that influence trade policies of nations, the role and impact of international trade agreements and the economic perspective on labour migration, capital flows and multi-national corporations. All topics will be discussed with the aid of real world examples and data, so as to create a non-hypothetical real life vision and current scenario of everything 'International'.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

develop an understanding of the microeconomic foundations of international trade theories in the context of partial and general equilibrium models.
provide an introduction to economic modelling in the context of international trade and an applied approach towards evaluating a model's validity in the real world
provide an understanding of the economic and political factors that shape the trade policies of a nation, and develop skills to critically analyse the welfare implications of trade policy.
develop a perspective on current issues in international trade such as labour and capital movements across nations, the currency crises, multi-national corporations and outsourcing.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 40%
Examination: 60%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Vinod Mishra

Prerequisites

Students must have passed at least two units from the following list before undertaking this unit: ECC1000 and ECC2000, or ECF1100 and one of either ECF2931 or ECF2731, or ECG1101 and ECG2731, or ECW1102 and ECW2731

Prohibitions

ECC3690, ECF3121, ECW3121, ECW3301