B020269 - BUSINESS HISTORY IN GLOBAL ECONOMY

English

The course aims to offer a general overview of the new international economic order following the end of Cold War. Questions to be raised go from the role of the State in globalization process to the new international division of labor, from the rise of the emerging countries to the deep restructuring of the most advanced economies, from the financialization process to the new balance between commodities producers and consumers.

Readings
An overview of the international economic scenario at the end of Cold War
• Aaron L. Friedberg, The Strategic Implications of Relative Economic Decline, in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 401-431
• Samuel P. Huntington, The U.S. - Decline or Renewal ?, in “Foreign Affairs”, Winter 1988/89

• The unexpected recovery of the US
Jeffrey Frankel and Peter Orszag, Retrospective on American Economic Policy in the 1990’s
David M. Kotz, The U.S. Economy in the 1990s: A Neoliberal Success Story? Univ. Massachusetts Papers, 2002

• Re-engineering and a return to core competencies
J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers, The ‘New Economy’: Background, Historical Perspective, Questions, and Speculations, in “Economic Review”, Fourth Quarter 2001, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
M. Hammer, Reengineering work: don’t automate, obliterate, in “Harvard Business Review”, July-August 1990

• Remodelling Japan
T. Ito- H. Patrick, Problems and Prescription for the Japanese Economy, MIT Press, cap 1, pp. 1-33
G. H. Saxonhouse, R. Stern, The Bubble and the Lost Decade, in G. H. Saxonhouse – R. Stern Saxonhouse, G. R. & Stern, R. M (Eds.), Japan’s lost decade: Origins, consequences and prospects for recovery, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004
• The European Hybrid
I. Schmidt, European Capitalism: Varieties of Crisis, in “Alternate Routes. A Journal of Critical Social Research, Vol. 22 (2010), 71-86


• Russia: from socialism to authoritarian capitalism via de-industrialization?
D. Shleifer – D. Treisman, A Normal Country: Russia After Communism, in “Journal of Economic Perspectives”, Vol. 19, Number 1, Winter 2005, pp. 151–174

IMF Working Paper, Middle East and Central Asia Department, N. Oomes – K. Kalcheva, Diagnosing Dutch Disease: Does Russia Have the Symptoms? April 2007

V. Dobrynskaya- E. Turkisch, Is Russia sick with the Dutch disease?, CEPII, November 2009

• Convergences and Divergences: Asian Tigers and South American countries

• A. Booth, Initial Conditions and Miraculous Growth: Why is South East Asia Different From Taiwan and South Korea?, in “World Development”, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1999, pp. 301-321

• India between poverty and high-tech
B. Bosworth-S. M. Collins-A. Virmani, Sources of Growth in the Indian Economy, NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES, Working Paper 12901, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12901, February 2007

C. Dittrich, Bangalore: Globalization and Fragmentation in India's High-tech-Capital, in “ASIEN”, 103 (April 2007), pp. 45-58

• China: a difficult model to capture
Justin Yufu Lin, Demystifying the Chinese Economy, Cambridge, CUP, 2011, pp. 1-19; pp. 222-233
R. McGregor, The Party. The Secret World of China’s Communist Party, London Harper Collins, 2010, pp. 34-69

• The world of commodities: producers vs. consumers ?
B. Erten and J. A. Ocampo, Super-cycles of commodity prices since the mid-nineteenth century, in Economic & Social Affairs DESA Working Paper No. 110 ST/ESA/2012/DWP/110 February 2012

S. K. Roache, China's Impact on World Commodity Markets, IMF Working Papers, WP/12/115

The financialization of the economy
N. N. Taleb, The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Pinguim Books, London 2007
G. A. Epstein, Introduction: Financialization and the World Economy, 2005
G. Napolitano, The two ways of global governance after the financial crisis: Multilateralism versus cooperation among governments, in “International journal of Constitutional Law”, (2011), Vol. 9 No. 2, 310–339

M. Wolf, Fixing Global Finance. How to Curb Financial Crisis in the 21st Century, New Haven-London, Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 28-57

Merging together different approaches methodological and theoretical approaches, from the business history approach (to understand the role of big firms and multinational enterprises in the last decades) to the international political economy approach (to evaluate the interaction of different economic and institutional actors, both at the national and/or supranational level) the course will familiarize students with the complexity of a changing world, where old hierarchies are continuously challenged, and apparently unexpected results are vice-versa the concrete effect of the new balance of power in the world markets.

Knowledge of world economic and political dynamics after the Second World War. Understanding of analytical tools in the field of economic theory, business history, and of the main theories of international relations

regular lecturing - discussion of paper previously dstributed to students - support of the slides used during the course

some audioviasual material will be used during the course

Written exam based on a 6-7 pages paper prepared by the student in advance on one of the topics of the coruse - final written exam divided into two parts: 10 true or fals questions with the possibility to motivate the choice, and four open questions

•1.What do they have in common: old and new protagonists of the globalization
•2.An overview of the international economic scenario at the end of Cold War and the unexpected recovery of the US
•3.Japan. The cost of the challenging and the lost decades
•4. The European Hybrid. Varieties of Capitalism in the Old Continent
•5. After Saigon’s fall: the triumph of capitalism in Asia
•6. B for Brazil or for bluff?
•7.Russia: from socialism to authoritarian capitalism via de-industrialization?
•8.India between poverty and high-tech
•9.China: the new giant or the partial power?
•10.The world of commodities: producers vs. consumers ?
•11. The financialization of the world economy