ISL 435E - The World Economy at a Glance

Course Objectives

The main goal of this course is to build up an understanding of the basic concepts, theories and methods used by economists to understand and explain the features of the contemporary World economy.

Course Description

We explore international macroeconomic issues such as international trade and finance, growth and fluctuations, multilateral institutions, trends in economic and human development and their political economy context. The course focuses on the multiple challenges facing contemporary economies at the global, regional and national scales, including the economic crisis, the ecological crisis, the crisis of inequalities, the crisis of democracy, the crisis of care and how these pertain to sustainable economic growth. Under each topic we look at the observed trends, alternative theoretical frameworks accounting for the causes and effects of these observed trends and policy debates in light of the latest empirical research and state-of-thinking/writing. The course aims to equip management engineering students with an in-depth understanding of the global macroeconomic environment in which businesses operate. Consideration of the relation of economic growth and global production to human development, social and environmental sustainability is a cross-cutting theme throughout the course.