KECD 2280 - INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Course description:

This course covers the baseline toolkit of modern international trade, on both the theoretical and empirical sides.

The toolkit is then applied to specific topics, which vary from year to year depending on the students’ research interests.

Outline

The 12 2-hour lectures will be organized as follows:

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 2: A primer on Comparative Advantage

From Ricardo to Dornbusch, Fisher & Samuelson (1977)

The empirics of comparative advantage: Deardorff (1984), Bernhofen & Brown (2004), Costinot & Donaldson (2012)

Lecture 3: The revival of Comparative Advantage

Baseline: Eaton & Kortum (2002)

Extensions: Costinot, Donaldson & Komunjer (2012), Caliendo & Parro (2014), Bernard, Eaton, Jensen & Kortum (2003), Lenoir, Martin & Mejean (2020)

Lecture 4: Trade under increasing returns to scale

Krugman (1979), Krugman (1980), Helpman & Krugman (1985)

Empirics: Costinot, Donaldson, Kyle & Williams (2019)

Lecture 5: Heterogeneous firms and the decision to export

Baseline: Melitz (2003)

Empirics: Eaton, Kortum & Kramarz (2011)

Lecture 6: Taking stocks: New and Old Gains from Trade

Arkolakis, Costinot & Rodriguez-Clare (2012), Head & Mayer (2014), Melitz & Redding (2014)

Lecture 7-: Quantitative Trade Models

Costinot & Rodriguez-Clare (2012), Adao, Costinot & Donaldson (2023), Baqaee & Farhi

(2024))

Lecture 8-: Topics in international macro and trade

Examples:

Relative price shocks and cost pass-through

Optimal trade policy

Trade and inequalities

Risk in Global Value Chains

Trade and conflicts

FDI

Trade and innovation

Organisation

12*2 hours

Evaluation and expected learning outcomes

Essay and oral presentation 100%