Teaching

Seminar International Economics: Using scientific evidence to evaluate economics podcasts

Instructors: Andrea Laßmann
Shortname: HS Micro
Course No.: 03.897.1949
Course Type: Hauptseminar

Requirements / organisational issues

Prerequisites: 
Students should have an intermediate level in international economics. This seminar is not suited for first-semester students.

Recommended reading list

Episodes (incomplete; or discuss your own podcast episode with me):

  • 200. Has the USMCA improved working conditions in Mexico?: https://tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/200-has-the-usmca-improved-working-conditions-in-mexico/, December 18, 2023.
  • 197. Moving workers across Europe: https://tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/197-moving-workers-across-europe/, November 26, 2003.
  • 188. Did responsible sourcing by multinationals help workers in poor countries?: https://tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/188-did-responsible-sourcing-by-multinationals-help-workers-in-poor-countries/, July 16, 2023.
  • 172. Peru’s “China shock”: Surprising turns and the women left behind: https://tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/172-perus-china-shock-surprising-turns-and-the-women-left-behind/, November 21, 2022.
  • Understanding the backlash to globalization: Prof. Penny Goldberg on the complicated rela-tionship between international trade, poverty reduction, and inequality: https://egc.yale.edu/events/podcasts/voices-development-episode-2, September 27, 2022.

    • I suggest looking into the now vast literature on distributional effects on globalization.

Contents

Quick access to information has become a key aspect of modern liberal democracies, yet the abundance of information is also one of the key challenges that our societies face. Podcasts are a great way of disseminating knowledge to a broader audience, but the mass of in-formation flows is also intransparent, contradicting, and oftentimes confusing and unfounded. This seminar aims to boost your skills in fundamentally understanding and discussing topics from eco-nomics podcasts in which different questions and hypotheses are discussed by experts and thought leaders in various fields.
In this course, each student will pick one podcast episode that discusses a topic relevant to contem-porary international economics, in particular trade. You will not simply listen to this episode. Your main challenge will be to put it in an economic context, meaning that you will do a literature re-search with the aim of identifying important economic theories and/or robust empirical evidence on the topic. This process will allow you to evaluate the scientific background of the episode’s content. You should narrow your work down to one question or hypothesis that is of core importance to the episode’s conversation and relevant to international economics. You should consider the following questions:

  1. Which theories provide a suitable framework to think about the underlying economic question?
  2. Which data are needed to analyze the question or hypothesis empirically?
  3. Are there any high-quality scientific contributions that have shed light on it? What empirical contexts and methods did they employ? What were their findings?
  4. Why is the topic important and what are the policy implications?
  5. What is an important but missing aspect of the conversation? Can I identify speakers’ biases?


Grading: 
Presentation (50%): Each seminar participant will present the key conclusion of their episode (on one slide), accompanied by an in-depth discussion of the economic content related to one episode. By economic content, I mean economic theories or empirical evidence that have contributed to an important aspect discussed in the podcast. I am happy to provide personal feedback on your presentation. Attendance of all presentations is mandatory. Seminar paper (50%): Students draft a policy report that should not exceed 5 pages including references. A final version should be submitted to the above email address by February 1st, 2025. Please follow the course objectives. Your report needs to fulfil all formal requirements (in particular, regarding citation). Successful students will receive 6 ECTS. Exhaustive information will be provided during our first meeting.

Additional information

Please discuss your questions and progress during my (virtual) office hour!

Dates

Date (Day of the week) Time Location
11/07/2024 (Thursday) 10:15 - 11:45 00 311 HS VI
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
01/10/2025 (Friday) 09:00 - 18:00 00 311 HS VI
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II