ECON 466A: TOPICS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE

FALL 2005

WEEKLY SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNMENTS

 

 

 

 

Week 1: Review of econometrics, data interpretation and the use of Stata. Application to US wages.

 

Reading: Revenga, A., "Exporting jobs? The impact of import competition on employment and wages in U.S. manufacturing," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 199

 

 

 

Week 2: Why do countries trade? What are the effects of trade policy?

 

Reading: Krugman and Obstfeld.

 

 

Week 3: Do more open economies grow faster?

 

Readings:

 

Sachs, J. and A. Warner, "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1995

 

Rodríguez and Rodrik, "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: a Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," Macroeconomics Annual 2000, eds. B. Bernanke and K. Rogoff, MIT Press for NBER, Cambridge, MA, 2001

 

Empirical exercise about trade and growth -- posted in classesv2 website.

 

Other articles (not required):

 

 

 

Week 4 (Sept. 27): Trade, outsourcing, immigration, and the rise in wage inequality in the U.S.

 

Readings:

 

 

Feenstra, R., "Advanced International Trade: Theory and Evidence," Princeton University Press, 2004, Chapter 4, Section on "Changes in Wages and Employment."

(This book is not freely available on-line. For copyright reasons this chapter can only be downloaded from the classesv2 website by students enrolled in 466a, with the sole purpose of using the material for this course).

 

Sachs, J. and H. Shatz, "Trade and jobs in U.S. manufacturing," Brooking Papers on Economic Activity, 1994

 

 

Empirical exercise about increase in inequality in the US -- posted in classesv2 website.

 

 

Presentation of Sachs, J. and H. Shatz

 

 

Presentation of Card, D., "The impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami labor market," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 1990

 

 

Other articles (not required):

 

 

 

 

Week 5 (Oct. 4): Trends in foreign direct investment

 

Press articles by Thomas Friedman (New York Times) (classesv2 website)

 

Write a letter to your Congressman assuming that you are a worker that has been displaced because of outsourcing (make up a story). Include economic arguments. After reading your letter, the Congressman decides to talk about your case with an economist that favors outsourcing. Write a second letter to the Congressman, assuming that you are now said economist, and contradict your original arguments. (Both letters will be read in class).

 

Readings: Feenstra - Integration and disintegration.

 

Presentation: Brainard, L., "An empirical assessment of the proximity-concentration trade-off between multinational sales and trade," American Economic Review, 1997; and

 

Presentation: Hanson G., R. Mataloni and M. Slaughter, "Expansion Strategies of US Multinational Firms," in Dani Rodrik and Susan Collins (eds) Brookings Trade Forum 2001, 2001

 

 

Non-required readings:

 

  

 

 

Week 6 (Oct. 11): Globalization and Anti-globalization

 

Readings: same as the presentations and press articles in "resources/sweatshops"

 

Presentation: Brown, Drusilla, "Labor Standards: Where do they belong on the International Trade Agenda?," The Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(3), Summer 2001, 89-112. (Rosanna)

 

 

Presentation: Edmonds, E. and N. Pavcnik, "Child Labor in the Global Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(1), Winter 2005, 199-220. (Megan)

 

 

 

Non-required articles:

 

 

 

Week 7 (Oct. 18): The world trading system

 

 

Read article from www.wto.org: Understanding the WTO

 

 

 

 

Week 8 (Oct. 25): Property rights

 

Readings and presentations:

 

Branstetter, Fisman and Foley, "Do Stronger Intellectual Property Rights Increase International Technology Transfer? Empirical Evidence from U.S. Firm-Level Data," NBER Working Paper No. 11516, 2005

(Sara)

 

Lanjouw, J., "The Introduction of Pharmaceutical Product Patents in India: "Heartless Exploitation of the Poor and Suffering"?," NBER Working Paper No. 6366, 1998 (Phillip)

 

 

 

 

Week 9 (Nov. 1): Dispute settlement in the WTO

 

Raj Krishna, "Antidumping in Law and in Practice," The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper No. 1823, September 1997.

 

Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Steel Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Institute for International Economics
September 2004. + LINKS to WTO SUMMARIES (John)

 

Goldstein, A. E. and S. M. McGuire, "The Political Economy of Strategic Trade Policy and the Brazil-Canada Export Subsidies Saga," The World Economy, Vol 27. No. 4, April 2004, 541-566. + LINK to WTO SUMMARIES (Ben)

 

Not required:

Julio Nogues, U.S. Contingent Protection against Honey Imports. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3088, June 2003.

 

 

 

Week 10 (Nov. 8): Agriculture

 

Antiglobalization:

Stop the Dumping! How EU Agricultural Subsidies are Damaging Livelihoods in the Developing Worlds, Oxfam Briefing Paper N. 31, November 2002.

 

Brazil and US cotton subsidies. (Doug)

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/bp64_cotton_dumping_060904.pdf

WTO US Cotton subsidies webpage

 

US subsidies on corn. (Lin)

http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/pp030827_corn_dumping.pdf

 

 

Non-requiered reading:

Arvind Panagariya, "Agricultural Liberalization and the Least Developed Countries: Six Fallacies," forthcoming World Economy, 2005

 

 

 

Week 11 (Nov. 15): Trade policy lobbies

 

 

Goldberg, P. and G. Maggi, "Protection for sale: an empirical investigation", American Economic Review, 1999 (Owen)

Kee, H.L., M. Olarreaga and P. Silva, "Market access for sale: Latin America's lobbying for U.S. tariff preferences," The World Bank, 2004  (Owen)

 

Baldwin, R. and C. Magee (1998): "Is trade policy for sale? Congressional voting on recent trade bills, NBER Working Papers, 6376 (Jessica)

 

 

Non-required additional articles:

 

 

 

 

Week 12 (Nov. 29): Preferential trade agreements. Discussion of term papers.