Trends of the Global Economy

Trends of The Global Economy

Language: English
Credits: 6 ECTS/45 contact hours
Semester: FALL

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course aims to analyze the major traits that characterize the global economic landscape and the international competitiveness of countries, as well as their likely evolution. We shall study globalization and its effects on the growth prospects of emerging economies; also, we will tackle the likely evolution of the population of the world as well as the evolution of the inequality between countries and their citizens within each. We will also study the energy and environmental threads faced by the world at large. Within the context set up by these basic trends, we can analyze the interaction between countries and the role of the existing International Economic Institutions, as well as properly put into perspective the prospects of the global financial system. Thus, we will discuss the major themes that will shape the business and social environment in which the future graduates will develop their professional careers.

We will begin by discussing the very meaning of “globalization”, its origins and the implications of the processes that are in action for and against its development. We will discover that globalization is a structural trait of the economic landscape that impinges on almost any economic dynamics we could think of. However, globalization is now in danger, its expansion delayed by strong forces at work in many regions and countries. Brexit is a clear warning about what is to come.

The first knot of trends that we will study, is the one that follows from the interrelations between demographic change, the production and distribution of food, the growing scarcity of fresh water available and the energy demands that stem from those factors. Once we introduce into the picture the reality of climate change, we end up with a potentially destructive circle of problems that some view as very capable of bringing about a collapse of the global economy.

To face that thread, the world would need a degree of commonality of purpose and the institutions capable of defining goals and set up the measures to bring them about, that simply is not present nowadays. There is a clear deficit of global governance, a new trend of  the global economy, which seems difficult to close until the world reaches a new equilibrium between its emerging and existing powers.

The question is that there seems to be competing two models of socioeconomic organization, which we will call post-crisis capitalism and state capitalism whose interactions and future evolution will be decisive to the issue of the global governance of the future world. In other words, we are in the middle of a transition period, one in which we still act under the structures and ways of the past, facing a world that is changing with unbelievable speed.

It is very likely that the issue of maintaining a consistent path of growth for the economies involved will prove crucial to the nature and character of the new power equilibrium that has to come. Thus, next we will devote our attention to the issue of growth and its determinants.
As we will see, the shape of institutions capable of adapting to the changing evolution of markets is crucial. In the process, we will discuss the new theories that present a future of low growth as the new normal for developed economies.

Finally, we will come to the last trend under discussion. This one is truly global, affecting most of the economies of the world. It has the potential to derail all efforts devoted to establishing and developing a framework of growth in which all nations share and from which all benefit. We refer to inequality, the fact that incomes and wealth are distribute more and more unequally among the citizens of almost all the economies, no matter their model of socioeconomic organization. This, all pervasive trend of growing inequality has a destructive
capacity that we shall consider as well as the measures that could be taken to stop its growing momentum.

CONTENTS:

I. Introduction

1. What is this course about?

2. The international economy and its globalization

3. What does 'Brexit' mean?

 

II. A global challenge

4. Demographic change

5. Water and food

6. Energy, supply and demand factors

7. Climate change

 

III. Global governance and models of organization

8. Global governance, geopolitical power shifts

9. Post-crisis capitalism and State capitalism. Two models of socio-political organization

 

IV. Competitiveness and growth

10. Why do nations grow?

11. The limits of growth

12. Why do nations fail?

 

IV. The major risk

13. The many faces of inequality. Global inequality

14. The many faces of inequality. Income inequality

 

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

In the Spanish educational system, it is required to quantitatively express the result of each student’s evaluation. In order to do so, Nebrija faculty uses different strategies and instruments such as: papers, exams, tests, projects, self-evaluation activities, etc. In order to issue a final grade for the Spanish Plus programs the following scale is established:

• 33 % Attendance and active participation in class
• 33% Daily work
• 34% Exams/papers/projects

Therefore, the final grade is the average between attendance and participation, daily work and exams, presentations, projects and essays.