ECO421H1F Special Topics in Economics: Trade Policy

The era of free trade has ended. Even before the 2024 re-election of Donald Trump in the United States, a substantial proportion of the world’s population had decided that globalization had gone too far. In response, governments increasingly started to exercise tools to manipulate the amount of exports and imports that left/entered their countries. This class is about these tools and how economists think about their effects. The class will start by examining the rise of globalization through institutions such as GATT and the WTO before turning to globalization’s decline. We will examine the theoretical welfare effects of various tools such as tariffs and quotas before moving to modern empirical work documenting their effects. We will then study quantitative trade models that put numbers to theory, before closing with the field of Geoeconomics which studies the political aspects of economies and resources as they pertain to international trade. Class attendance is mandatory.

Section L0101 , Fall 2025–26

Instructor: Peter Morrow
Day/time: T10-1

Delivery Method & Instructions : In Person

Location: