Insegnamento a.a. 2025-2026

The course is structured around four core pillars:

1. Economic Growth and Development
   • Foundations of long-term growth across countries
   • Productivity, technological change, and demographic trends
   • Institutions, human capital, and inequality in development
2. International Trade and Globalization
   • Causes and consequences of globalization
   • Winners and losers from trade
   • The rise of global value chains and trade imbalances
3. Global Finance and Crises
   • Exchange rate regimes, capital flows, and macroeconomic policy in open economies
   • Financial integration, sudden stops, and sovereign debt crises
   • Causes and consequences of financial crises
4. Economics and Climate Change
   • Climate risks and their macroeconomic impact
   • Carbon pricing, green investment, and transition policies
   • Global coordination and the macroeconomics of mitigation and adaptation

• Describe the main determinants of long-term economic growth and development across countries.
• Explain the economic mechanisms behind international trade, globalization, and their distributional effects.
• Identify the structure and functioning of global financial markets, including exchange rate regimes and capital flow dynamics
• Recognize the macroeconomic risks associated with climate change and the role of economic policy in addressing them.
• Interpret global macroeconomic trends and policy debates through a combination of theoretical models and empirical evidence.

• Analyze cross-country growth patterns and development challenges using real-world data and indicators.
• Assess the macroeconomic impacts of trade integration, global shocks, and policy decisions in open economies.
• Evaluate case studies of international financial crises, identifying root causes and policy responses.
• Apply macroeconomic reasoning to climate policy challenges, including carbon pricing and green investment.
• Interpret policy reports and data from international institutions (e.g., IMF, World Bank, OECD, IPCC) to draw informed conclusions about global economic issues.
   

• Lectures
• Individual works / Assignments
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

The learning experience of this course includes, in addition to face-to-face lectures, Group Assignments and Class Discussions using an online discussion forum.

Group assignments allow students to apply the analytical tools illustrated during the course, develop teamwork skills and improve their capacity of writing formal reports.

Class discussions give students the opportunity of expressing ideas and interacting with peers, improving critical thinking skills and writing ability in a more informal context, applying the concepts introduced during lectures to real world situations.

Evaluation methods are the same for attending and non-attending students. 

With the purpose of measuring the acquisition of the above-mentioned learning outcomes, students’ assessment is based on a written exam, a group assignment and class discussions. 

• Written Exam (WE) – weight = 75%:

The written exam is aimed at verifying knowledge and understanding of the concepts introduced during the course. Moreover, the exam evaluates students’ ability of expressing in a clear and logic way the concepts learnt.

The exam is composed of essay questions, in which students are required to explain concepts, discuss statements, graphs, data or policy measures, derive analytical results, provide an opinion about economic issues using the tools developed during the course.

The written exam can be divided into 2 partial exams.

Only students passing the midterm exam with a grade of at least 15/30 have access to the final partial exam on Section 2 of the course. Students with a grade lower than 15/30 in the midterm exam must sit the general written exam.

For students taking partial exams, the written exam grade (WE) is the simple average of the grades obtained in the two partial exams. 

• Group Assignment (GA) – weight=25%:

Students will be assigned to a group. Each group should develop a report on a topic chosen by group members among the proposed ones.

Group assignments are aimed at verifying students’ ability of working in teams and their capacity of writing formal reports on economic issues.

Peer evaluation: Students will be asked to evaluate groupmates’ effort in the group project. In case of insufficient participation, the grade of the group project will not be considered for the free rider student.

Peer evaluation serves two important purposes. On the one hand, it is used to deter free riding; on the other hand, it recognizes the importance of developing skills in evaluating peers and collegues. 

• Class discussions (CD):

Four themes of discussion will be proposed to students in a dedicated online forum in Blackboard. This activity is aimed at assessing students’ skills of critical thinking and their ability of developing and properly expressing their personal ideas on the economic issues proposed, as well as their interaction abilities.

These discussions will give students additional points that will be added to the calculated grade.

Final grade

Two cases must be distinguished:

• If GA > WE: the final grade is the weighted average of the grades obtained in the written exam and the group assignment plus the additional points obtained with class discussions.  

Final grade = 0.75 * WE + 0.25*GA + CD

• Otherwise, the final grade is equal to the grade obtained in the written exam, plus the additional points obtained with the class discussions.

Final grade = WE + CD

Note: This rule implies that the group assignment can only improve on the exam grade. 

There is no single textbook for this course. The instructor uses different sources, including lecture notes, slides, and other handouts, which are made available on the course website on Bboard.