The Economics of International Business
Jordan I. Siegel and Juan Alcacer
HBS 4720
The course is intended for doctoral students in economics departments and business schools with an interest in the microeconomic underpinnings of firm-level issues internationally. The prerequisites are a first-year graduate sequence in microeconomics and econometrics or the equivalent. The course begins with an analytical introduction to the phenomenon of globalization and to the idea of economic geography. The rest of the course, addressing both theoretical and empirical issues, is divided into two parts. The first part examines cross-country issues including the literatures on multinationals, trade, FDI and cross-border flows in product and factor markets. The second examines within-country issues including comparative institutional analysis and the origin and persistence of differences in the business environments across countries. The course thus develops a perspective on the extent to which firm choices and managerial behavior are universal as opposed to context-dependent.
Prerequisite: Economics 2010a or the equivalent.