International Trade Theory

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International Trade Theory

• Course website
• Go to University of Manitoba website, log into
  JUMP
• or
• http//www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/economics/L
  aura_Brown

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Professor Laura Brown

• Office 549 Fletcher Argue Building
• Phone number 474-9393
• email Econ3670_at_hotmail.com
• Office hours Tuesday, 130 330
• Thursday, 130 330
• or by appointment or drop-in.

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My experience

• I have worked in international development
• Kenya, five year project
• building a general equilibrium model to forecast
  the countrys growth
• conducting a rural labour force survey
• I worked with the International Institute for
  Sustainable development
• co-wrote papers on environmental policy
  instruments, and on environmental policy and
  international competitiveness

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My Interests

• Trade and environment
• do good environmental laws make a country more or
  less competitive?
• what roles and responsibilities do individuals
  have to ensure we have a future?
• should trade be used as a lever to improve
  environmental practices?

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My teaching

• In teaching, I will try to discuss strengths and
  weaknesses of theories.
• I will use class time to do practice exercises.
  Each class will have several practice problems,
  that I call You do
• I have old lecture notes on the web, but these
  are being revamped this year. As much as
  possible, new notes will be posted before class.
• I used JUMP last year. Go to JUMP to find my
  class. I will slowly migrate to WebCT as time
  permits.

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My teaching and politics

• I am not pro-trade or protectionist, but try to
  consider different sides to each problem.
• I am usually too far to the left for people on
  the right and too far to the right for people on
  the left. Sorry, in advance.

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My teaching and expectations

• I see my role as one of helping you to understand
  trade theory and its origins,
• so that you can
• present your own views skillfully, and
• critically assess arguments of others.

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Expectations

• I believe that 3rd year university students are
  adults.
• You are soon to go out in the world, and some of
  you, many of you, will influence the future shape
  of your country and your world.
• Furthermore, the world now needs all of us to
  think carefully about the choices we make.

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Expectations

• I expect you to read the textbook, notes and any
  assigned readings, and come to class regularly.
• In class, I expect you to pay attention and
  participate.
• I expect you to hand in work on time.
• I expect you to come to me for help as the course
  unfolds.
• I expect you to be honest in your dealings with
  me. This includes test writing.

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Lets find out a little about you

• Please sit in groups of 5.
• There should be 12 groups.
• Please take out a piece of paper and pen.

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Now, please write an ending to the following two
sentences

• The main thing I hope to learn from this course
  is .
• To help me in this course, I hope Prof. Brown
  will.

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Responses
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Background

• How many students have taken ECON2450 ?
• How many students have taken ECON2470?
• How many students have taken ECON2700?
• How many students have taken ECON3700?

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This course builds on Micro theory

• Some concepts needed in this course
• Relative price
• Supply and demand
• Consumer theory
• Production theory
• General equilibrium
• Trade theory can be viewed as neoclassical
  microeconomics on steroids. We start with
  standard analysis, then add to it.

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Trade uses a lot of graphs

• Supply and demand graphs
• with price or quantity constraints
• Indifference curves with Production possibility
  frontier (ppf)
• for 2 countries
• Isoquant and Isocost curves
• for 2 industries two countries
• Edgeworth box
• manipulate size, examine price change.
• Graphs specific to trade theory.

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Even if it can be challenging, studying trade is
very important

• How many of you are wearing imported clothing?
• How many of you are sure that you are wearing at
  least one item of clothing made in Canada?
• How many of you own stocks, bonds or mutual
  funds?
• How many have foreign assets in your portfolio?

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Trade in services is important too

• Who has travelled outside of your home country?
• Who has phoned a service line think you were
  talking to someone out of the country?

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How do we think about trade?

• Are exports better than imports?
• What are differential student fees?
• How do we analyze their impact on
• students
• institutions receiving the fees?
• How is this affected by other funding sources?

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Now lets turn to the course outline