The objective of the course is to offer students an introduction to two key dimensions of globalization: international trade and international finance. The course will cover both theoretical and empirical contributions and will often refer to current policy issues in both international trade and macroeconomics. Using theoretical and empirical tools, we will consider a wide range of questions such as: what are the gains of specialization? what is the effect of trade on inequality? How does market power of firms affect international trade? What are the consequences of trade policies? How to understand international financial flows? What is the relation between exchange rates and monetary policy? How does globalization affect the conduct of macroeconomic policies? Is the euro an optimal currency area? Why so many international financial crises?.

This course studies the design of institutions that optimally cope with fundamental, longstanding economic questions (allocation of private goods, public good provision, externalities). We start from a simple, institution-free description of each question, try to understand the basic tensions at work, and derive institutions that optimally address these tensions. In the process, we introduce the important ideas of social choice, game theory, and market design. We will shed light on the theoretical concepts using empirical applications and in class games. The course is divided into four parts: 1. Social Choice, Efficiency and Welfare: We discuss normative criteria to evaluate collective choices made by a society comprised of individuals with possibly conflicting preferences (e.g. unanimity, not ruling out any preferences, not being dictatorial), and show that it is impossible to create institutions leading to choices that always satisfy even a minimal list of criteria. Next we introduce the possibility of pecuniary transfers to compensate individuals for social choices that harm them. We show that, when they are acceptable, Pareto efficiency and utilitarianism are equivalent, and a natural notion of social welfare emerges that ranks possible social choices. 2. Game Theory and Incentives: With this natural notion of optimal social choices, the question becomes a positive one: how can such choices be implemented. The difficulty is that the social value of different choices can only be assessed from the preferences of individuals. But each individual is the only one to know her true preferences, and must therefore be incentivized to provide this information. Institutions can be understood as rules of a game in which individuals strategically report their preferences. Game theory is the science of such strategic interactions, and we will introduce its basic ideas and some applications (e.g. competition between firms, tax fraud, bitcoin, pollution abatement). 3. Institutions as Mechanisms: At this stage, we are equipped to look for institutions that lead to efficient social choices in spite of asymmetric information about preferences. We will do so for three types of important economic problems: the allocation of private goods, the provision of public goods, and the organization of trade. We show that well designed auctions can solve the allocation problem. Using this as a starting point, we derive a general class of mechanisms that solve the incentive problem and lead to efficient social choices. They do so by using transfers that lead individuals to internalize the externality they exercise on others, and therefore align their incentives with social welfare. Such mechanisms however lead to budget deficits when applied to public good provision or trade. In fact, we show that efficiency cannot be achieved for these problems and we derive second-best solutions, that is, institutions that are optimal given the need to incentivize individuals. As the number of agents increases, we show that the inefficiency disappears, and that these second-best solutions come to resemble the ideal situation of perfectly competitive markets, thus providing support for the idea of market efficiency. For the public good problem, however, scaling if of no use. 4. Limits to Efficiency: In the last part of the course, we examine other possible sources of economic inefficiency. We start by looking at monopolies and their pricing strategies. We explain first, second and third-degree price discrimination. We explain how second degree-price discrimination can be understood as a mechanism designed to maximize profit rather than welfare. We also show how online information about consumers affects third-degree price discrimination, and use this to discuss the regulation of online data. Then we show how asymmetric information can destroy efficient trade even in competitive markets when they are subject to adverse selection and apply this idea to financial markets, job markets and insurance markets. Finally, we go back to auctions and the private good allocation problem, and show that a revenue-maximizing seller will optimally design auctions that distort efficiency.

The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (FAO, 2021). On the other hand, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organisation. This denotes the crisis in global food systems, resulting in a stark divide between people who are stuffed or starved – this course will identify the underlying structural issues beyond supply and demand for this phenomenon. Moreover, it will examine food production, distribution, and consumption issues across geographic scales, spanning the microcosm of the individual body to the national and global scales. We will follow the journey of food from plough to plate and in the process, this course will explore the political, socio-economic, geopolitical and cultural dimensions of food and eating in particular spaces, places, environments, contexts and regions. Empirical methodology will be used with a particular focus on case studies. In conclusion, we will examine the fundamental role played by food systems in shaping our civilization as well as the challenges and possible solutions and policy prescriptions to address those challenges.

TIn this course, students will learn basic linear algebra necessary to understand the operations regarding derivatives of functions with more than one variable to investigate maximum and minimum values of those functions with economics applications in mind. Students will also see how to solve linear systems and then how to turn them into problems involving matrices, then learn some of the important properties of matrices. This course will focus on topics in linear algebra and multivariable differential calculus suitable for economic applications. Part 1 (6 lectures): Linear Algebra. System of Linear equations: Gaussian and Gauss-Jordan Elimination, Elementary row operations, Systems with many or no solutions, the linear Implicit function theorem. Matrices : matrix Algebra, Rank – The fundamental criterion, determinants, inverse of a matrix, Cramer’s rule. Vector Spaces : Linear dependence, Basis, Rank of a Matrix, Eigen value, Eigen Vector Part 2 (5 lectures): Multivariable calculus : Quadratic Forms : Definiteness, linear constraints Unconstrained Optimization : First order conditions, Second order conditions, Global maxima and minima. Constrained Optimization : First Order Conditions, equality constraints, Inequality constraints, Mixed constraints, Constrained optimization problems, Kuhn-Tucker formulation, the meaning of the multiplier, envelope theorems.

This course seeks to make sense of the sheer volume and variety of mass violence—including violence on the environment—over the course of the 20th century with a focus on East and Southeast Asia. Probing deeper than traditional actors such as the state or political party, the course explores the motivations behind popular participation in modern state or political programs and movements, and especially those of the youth in Japan, China, and Cambodia. Moving chronologically from the Japanese Empire at the turn of the 20th century through Maoism and the Khmer Rouge to the current climate crisis, the course views mass mobilization and violence through a range of themes and topics: from ecological catastrophe and class rivalries to cultural practice and the uses of memory. To ensure that our subjects are considered in a broader, global perspective, the course has a comparative component that we pair with our secondary reading each week: François Bizot’s memoir of captivity by the Khmer Rouge,The Gate/Le portail, and Jan Gross’s study of genocide in Poland, Neighbors, which we read in full and discuss together over the course of the semester. We do this for what these and other readings reveal about the psychology of communal violence at the most intimate level and the sheer complexity of factors that have fueled some of the most troubling aspects of humanity in the modern era. We also view parts of two films together: L’Image manquante (The Missing picture, 2013) by Rithy Panh on the Cambodian genocide and Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Bianca Stigter/Glenn Kurtz, 2021) on Poland. Finally, the course ends with reflections on the politics of war remembrance, and the place of mass violence in a world facing climate change, water and resource crises, and rapid loss of bio-diversity.

The Pacific Ocean is greater than the combined landmasses of the entire Earth. The Indian Ocean is vast body of Water with circa 20% of the world surface. The Atlantic Ocean can be perceived as the cradle of the occidental Civilization especially when the Mediterranean is included in its broad remit, nexus of exchange between European Nations, newly formed North American States, Latin American civilizations, the Caribbean and Africa. Our oceans are the earth’s largest habitats and have geopolitical impact and continuously excerpt major influence on global events as on regional decisions. Oceans matter deeply. Oceans contain valuable resources such as oil, natural gas and minerals and they are also homing futures promising strategic elements such as platinum group metals, steel stabilizers, high-tech metals and rare earth elements. The industrialization of the seas is expanding worldwide since green energies produced through wind, waves, deep currents, or variations of the salinization are mobilizing more and more interests Furthermore, playing a key role in the climate system, sciences are needed to understand, to monitor changes as to deploy alternative technologies to ultimately protect life. Oceans invite to exchanges and, often, to negotiate on common agreements. Following these needs for agreements and understandings, the seminar will help to identify history, debates, failures, challenges and opportunities for practitioners, decision-makers, from the world’s seas and oceans.

The objective of the course is twofold. Firstly, it aims at equipping students with the capacity to think critically about today’s most pressing environmental problems: Climate change, deforestation, resource management, mining, environmental pollution, biodiversity loss, etc. Secondly, the course uses a comparative approach to provide students with an overview of how environmental problems unfold in Asian contexts. The class will try to address the following questions: ● What are the main environmental problems taking place in Asia? ● How are people affected? ● How do environmental issues affect transnational relations? ● What role do national governments, local governments, and civil society play in tackling them? ● What tradeoffs do governments and societies face? ● What does it say about domestic dynamics?

Does China have “a constitution without constitutionalism”? Or does China offer an alternative form of constitutionalism? Lacking the basic grammar of “Western” modern constitutionalism, such as the separation of powers and judicial constitutional review, the Chinese constitutional law is key to understanding many controversies about China in the international community, especially those concerning human rights protection and the governance of autonomous regions (such as Xinjiang and Tibet) and special administrative regions (notably Hong Kong). To help students better understand the characteristics of China’s political and legal system and reflect on the role of the constitution in a state and how it is implemented, this course provides a comprehensive introduction to the historical trajectory of constitution-making and constitution-amending in China, the features of the current constitution, and the latest developments of constitutional implementation, understood in the social, political, and economic contexts of China and from a comparative perspective vis-à-vis the West. At the same time, the course will familiarize students with some basic concepts in legal theory and constitutional law, as well as different approaches of comparative legal studies. The course begins with an introduction to the modern idea and practices of constitution and constitutionalism in the West and how the current Chinese constitution and practices measure up against them. The course then unfolds in three parts. In Part I, we will first review the constitutional reform in the late Qing Dynasty and the constitutional revolutions in the Republican Era. Then we will examine the making of the 1949 Common Program and the 1954 Constitution of the PRC and figure out the rationales for and the features of each constitutional amendment thereafter. Part II will focus on the current Constitution: the fundamental rights and duties of the citizens; the party’s leadership, the principle of democratic centralism and the division (rather than separation) of powers among state organs; the pluralist central-local relations in a unitary system, notably the regional ethnic autonomy and the “one country, two systems” policy, etc. In the final session, we will explore the idea of “constitutionalism beyond liberalism” and discuss where the Chinese experiences can contribute to our understanding of constitutionalism.

This class considers how comparative constitutional law has influenced contemporary political institutions. As a starting point, we will examine the different ways in which the Constitution of the Vth French Republic has gained and maintained authority as the highest law of the land, despite apparent conflicts of sovereignty in a globalized world. Building on the analysis of the birth and evolution of political institutions, covered in the first-year course on comparative constitutional law, this second-year course will examine the underlying tensions within constitutional regulation, by exploring the concepts of constitutional identity, constitutional legitimacy, and constitutional efficiency in modern constitutional practice around the globe. We will question the role of the Constitution of the French Vth Republic in this comparative context, which is particularly important to students wishing to engage in effective careers of politics and government in an era of ever increasing popular contestation of State-centered regulation. The first four lectures compare the strengths and weaknesses of divers constitutional mechanisms in implementing the identity of a nation or a people, both institutionally (horizontal separation of powers) and geographically (vertical separation of powers). The four seminars corresponding to the lectures will confront the analysis gleaned from the ongoing French experience of the Vth Republic, as applicable to contemporary constitutional issues raised by fourth wave democracies following the Arab Spring (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya will be recurrent but non-exclusive examples) as well as to the evolution of constitutionalism in Asia (China, Japan, India). Special attention will be given to the notion of constitutionally regulated secularism in an increasingly non-secular world (Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon). The second part of the course (lectures 5-8) will approach the problem of long-term legitimacy of contemporary constitutions. To do so, we will confront divers constitutional practices to that of the Constitution of the Vth Republic, examining their political and legal adaptation to new forms of participation and representation (citizens in the electoral process, the “elected monarch” and the government, evolution of political parties, the legislative process, constitutional amendment, gender, minorities, lobbies…), and the effect and role of widened judicial review. The four corresponding seminars will consider how jurists across different systems (namely the United Kingdom, Ireland, Russia, United States, Germany, South Korea, India) have interpreted and implemented similar mechanisms. The final four sessions (lectures 9-12) will challenge the efficiency of modern constitutions, confronted with the expanding role of international law and supranational judicial bodies, notably in the area of rights adjudication and governmental regulation. The four corresponding seminars will then focus on current challenges to constitutional principles by regional law (European Union, Council of Europe) and international law, emphasizing the ambiguities of constitutional regulation of fundamental rights in the age of information technology and global terrorism. Depending on the evolution of the sanitary crisis, a hearing before the French Constitutional Council in Paris will enable students to observe an interpretive method hands on, and a conference-debate with a guest expert will illustrate the practical influence of comparative constitutional law on modern constitutional design.