University of Miami
Master of Arts in International Administration
IGS 615 – International Economics – Spring 2017
SYLLABUS
Alfredo García
Religious Studies Department
509 Ashe Building
Office Hours: Thursdays, 4-6PM
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.alfgarciamora.com
Course time: Thursdays, 6:25-9:05PM
Course location: Dooley Memorial 315
Course Description
From peer-to-peer payments on cell phones to loans from the International Monetary Fund, from farmers
markets to stock markets, economic transactions are an integral part to the lives of people across the
globe. Understanding economic activity, therefore, is essential for understanding social interactions and
trends in nations and communities worldwide. This course will examine economic activity from cultural
and sociological perspective, leading students through an examination of different levels of economic
activity and embeddedness in markets. The principle aim of this course is to consider the practical realities
of theoretical work in economics. Students in this course will, in short, consider how theories of economic
activity actually play out in the real lives of individuals in different sociohistorical and cultural contexts.
Required Texts
All other readings will be available through Blackboard.
Course Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes
Course Objectives
This course has been designed so that the student:
- may make connections between the macroscopic shifts in economic markets and the microscopic
realities of individual activity.
- can learn the basics of economic theory as applied to social and cultural analysis of economic
activity worldwide.
- obtains important vocabulary and details related to economic transactions.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- articulate current sociocultural trends in economic activity the U.S. and other countries.
- develop economic questions and visualize which methods are most adequate to pursue
hypotheses.
- explain economic phenomena by situating the individual in larger sociocultural and economic
contexts.
Grading
20% - Participation and Attendance
50% - Article Project
30% - Final Paper
Participation and Attendance Policy
Attendance and participation is a sizeable portion of your grade. You are expected to have read all of the
week’s materials prior to coming to class and must arrive prepared to discuss all of the readings and give
your own input on the topics. Class time will be a mix of lecture, activities, and discussion, so be prepared
to talk about the materials that have been assigned for class. We meet only once a week, so make sure to
dedicate time throughout the week to do the readings. DO NOT leave it for the night before class; you will
hate yourself.
By taking this class, you are making a commitment to attend lectures, arrive on time, and leave only when
class is fully finished.
Technology is now ubiquitous and is an integral part of social interaction today. The dings, vibrations, and
boinks of cell phones, tablets, and computers, however, are highly distracting for class discussions and
lectures. As a result, you must turn off and put away your cell phone and computers upon entering the
classroom. Laptops will not be allowed during class. Make sure to bring plenty of paper and writing
utensils for class notes and activities.
It is my legal right to prohibit any kind of recording of this class, and I exercise that right. Therefore,
recording devices of any kind, audio or video, are prohibited in this class. Violating this policy is illegal, and
violators will be sanctioned.
Article Project
Newspaper and magazine articles are always speaking about some “new study” that has come out.
Whether it is new data about household savings or the latest work from game theory, from why we cheat
to why we buy so many phone apps, journalists are often on the hunt for the latest publications on
controversial topics that people might want to read about. The flurry for media content, however, often
results in poor reporting of the findings that are published. Academic articles are lengthy pieces that take
years to write, peer-review, and publish. With the growing need for perpetual content on television,
therefore, much of the nuances and details of academic research fall to side in favor of catchy sentences
and general summaries.
Your task for this essay, therefore, is to find an article from a major news publication that talks about the
findings from a new study and analyze whether the article summarized the findings correctly. The topic
that is covered can be about anything related to international economics, but please check with me if you
have any questions about whether the topic is appropriate or not. We will work on this project over the
course of the entire semester in parts, each of which will build up to the final 50% of your grade, so do
not stress.
IGS 615 – International Economics
In its rough format, the project will flow as follows:
1. Find an article from a major news publication from the past year.
a. Look for sources such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The
Economist, or any other such venues.
b. Download the news piece as a PDF and print the article so that you can submit it alongside
your paper and discuss it in class. Make sure you have all the information you need in
order to cite the news piece properly.
2. Look up the academic article that is discussed in the news piece.
a. We have a huge database of online journals through the university. Do not pay for
anything! We get them all for free because of our subscriptions. If you need any help,
please contact the library staff for assistance.
b. Download the academic article as a PDF and print it in full so that you can submit it
alongside your paper and discuss it in class.
3. Read the news publication AND the academic article in great detail.
a. Academic articles are often lengthy and difficult to interpret. Please make sure you take
your time and read patiently.
b. Use this time to compare and contrast the information that you see in the news piece and
the academic article.
4. Analyze the news piece and assess whether they accurately reported the findings of the academic
article.
a. What did the news piece get right? What did they get wrong?
b. What conclusions did the news piece ignore? Was this a fair assessment of the findings?
c. What sorts of questions does all of this pose for you? Why is it interesting?
5. Build off of all these insights and consider the context of the academic piece, what other academic
pieces speak to these findings, and what questions remain to be answered.
a. What is the state of the field on this topic?
b. Why does any of this matter?
Final Project
The final project asks you to synthesize the knowledge you have gained about your particular topic into a
traditional essay. More information on the essay will be provided later in the semester.
In addition to the final essay, students will put together a portfolio of all the steps, essays, and class
assignments related to the production of the final piece. Since we will be working on these over the course
of the semester, it is imperative that students save all documents in chronological order. The final student
portfolio will include all assignments and task in a single .pdf document.
Details
All assignments must be emailed directly to me as a .doc or .docx file by the deadline stipulated in class.
These must be typed up using Chicago Manual Style citations, 12-point font, black text, 1 inch margins,
and single-spaced lines.
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Writing Center
The University of Miami’s Writing Center is an incredible resource for writing help at all levels. Whether
you are writing a thesis or a personal statement, an academic article or a response paper, the Writing
Center is more than happy to aid you in your work. I highly recommend that you take advantage of the
Writing Center if you have any questions regarding your writing. As graduate students, I expect your
writing to be clear, cogent, and grammatically correct. Do not hesitate to contact the Writing Center
representatives for help with your assignments in this class. You can find out more at their website:
http://www.as.miami.edu/writingcenter/.
IGS 615 – International Economics
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1: Jan 19
Introduction
There are no readings assigned for this week.
Week 2: Jan 26
On Money
Carruthers, Bruce. 2005. “The Sociology of Money and Credit.” Pp. 355-378. In The Handbook of
Economic Sociology, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg. New York and Princeton,
NJ: Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press.
Zelizer, Viviana. 1997. “The Marking of Money” and “What Does Money Mean?” Pp. 1-35 and 199216 in The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Week 3: Feb 2
Household Labor
Brines, Julie. 1994. “Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home.”
American Journal of Sociology 100: 652-688.
Xie, Yu, and Haiyan Zhu. 2009. “Do Sons or Daughters Give More Money to Parents in Urban
China?” Journal of Marriage and Family 71: 174-186.
Week 4: Feb 9
Household Economics: On the Role of the Family as a Source of Insurance Against Labor Income Risk
Guest Lecture
Salvador Ortigueira, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Miami
Greenwood, Jeremy, Nezih Guner, and Guillaume Vandenbroucke. 2016. “Family Economics Writ
Large.”
Federal
Reserve
Bank
of
St.
Louis
Working
Paper
Series.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2016/2016-026.pdf
(Please feel free to skim this piece and just focus on the opening sections)
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Week 5: Feb 16
On Social Capital
Portes, Alejandro. 1998. “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology.” Annual
Review of Sociology 24: 1-24.
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. “Thinking About Social Change in America” and “The Dark Side of Social
Capital.” Pp. 15-28 and 350-363 in Bowling Alone: The collapse and Revival of American
Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Week 6: Feb 23
On Consumption and Consumer Markets
Ritzer, George. 2013. “An Introduction to McDonaldization.” Pp. 1-22 in The McDonaldization of
Society, 6th Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Watson, James L. 2006. “Transnationalism, Localization, and Fast Foods in East Asia.” Pp. 1-38 in
Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia, 2nd Edition. Edited by James L. Watson. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Anderson, Chris. 2004. “The Long Tail.” Wired. October. (https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/)
Week 7: Mar 2
On Globalization
Friedman, Thomas L. 2007. “The Ten Forces that Flattened the World.” Pp. 51-199 in The World is
Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Third Edition. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus
and Giroux.
Centeno, Miguel A., and Joseph N. Cohen. 2010. “Introduction” and “Inequality,” Pp. 1-9 and 146173 in Global Capitalism: A Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2003. “The Promise of Global Institutions.” And “Freedom to Choose?” Pp. 3-22
and 53-88 in Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
IGS 615 – International Economics
Week 8: Mar 9
Neoliberalism and the Global City
Centeno, Miguel A., and Joseph N. Cohen. 2012. “The Arc of Neoliberalism.” Annual Review of
Sociology 38: 317-340.
Sassen, Saskia. 2005. “The Global City: Introducing a Concept.” Brown Journal of World Affairs
XI(2): 27-43.
Week 9: Mar 16 – NO CLASS
Enjoy your spring break!
Week 10: Mar 23
Globalization and the Welfare State
Guest Lecture
Patrick Thompson
The Economist. 2016. “League of Nationalists.” The Economist. November 19.
Drezner, Daniel W. 2001. “Globalization and Policy Convergence.” International Studies Review
1(2): 53-78.
Thompson, Patrick J. 2010. “The Effect of Globalization on the Welfare State.” Unpublished essay.
Week 11: Mar 30
Brazil: Pursuing National Autonomy in a Neoliberal World
Guest Lecture
Patrick Thompson
Williamson, John. 2004. “The Strange History of the Washington Consensus.” Journal of Keynesian
Economics 27(2): 195-206.
Birdsall, Nancy, and Francis Fukuyama. 2011. “The Post-Washington Consensus: Development
After the Crisis.” Foreign Affairs 90(2).
Thompson, Patrick J. 2013. “Brazilian Grand Strategy: A Review Essay.” Unpublished essay.
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Week 12: Apr 6
On the Politics of Environmental Policy Making
Guest Lecture
George Gonzalez
Gonzalez, George. 2005. “Urban Sprawl, Global Warming and the Limits of Ecological
Modernisation.” Environmental Politics 14(3): 344-362.
Week 13: Apr 13
Environmental Regulation
Guest Lecture
David Kelly, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Miami
Goulder, Lawrence H. 2013. "Markets for Pollution Allowances: What Are the (New)
Lessons?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(1): 87-102.
Aldy, Joseph E., Alan J. Krupnick, Richard G. Newell, Ian W. H. Parry, and William A. Pizer. 2010.
"Designing Climate Mitigation Policy." Journal of Economic Literature 48(4): 903-34.
Week 14: Apr 20
High Net Worth Individuals and the New Global Elites
Harringon, Brooke. 2016. “Introduction,” “Tactics and Techniques of Wealth Management,” and
“Wealth Management and Inequality.” Pp. 1-35, 123-192, and 193-232 in Capital Without
Borders. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Horowitz, Noah. 2011. “Experiential Art.” Pp. 87-142 in Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a
Global Financial Market. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. 2015. World Wealth Report.
Week 15: Apr 27
All good things must come to an end! Wrapping up and final thoughts.