International Economics Project

Project Requirement There are 5 groups, and each have 4 students. Each group should have both male and female students. Each group could choose from 6 topics. Each group need to collect related data, using the econometric technology to analyze the problems, and report your conclusion in a presentation.

Presentation Requirement Each group need to prepare for a presentation for 60 minutes. Each member of the group need to present for at least 10 minutes. Each group need to have a slides to show your results. Roughly, each page will take you 1 minute and you need to write down about 60 pages.

Presentation Requirement The first page should be the question. The second page should be the answer in one sentence. The rest should explain the background mechanism of your conclusion. Don’t supply too much information in one page. (No more than 4 lines in one page.)

Presentation Requirement When you present, the only material you could see is your slides. NO cheat sheet! NO cellphone! Don’t try to memorize all the material and repeat in presentation like a machine. Try to analyze and understand it and speak out in your own words.

Project Requirement I will randomly decide the order of all groups. The first group will choose the time slot first. The last group will choose the topic first. On that day, after 60 minutes presentation, I will randomly choose 4 other students to comment their presentation. Each commenter get 5 minutes to discuss with presenters.

Comment Requirement Comment should be: Questions you don’t understand in their presentation. Constructive critiques We don’t need any praise comment. Presenter need to: Answer the questions that commenters mention. Defend yourself in any critique.

Evaluation Totally, the project will account for 20% of the final grade. The presentation will take 15% and the comment will take 5% The score for presentation will be the same for each group, but the comment score will be different for everyone.

Evaluation If you don’t satisfy the requirement I list here, you will get minus score. If you repeat previous groups mistakes, you will get minus score. Thus, the standard of evaluation will be higher and higher.

Topic List

Topic 1 World Trade Overview What does world trade change(volume and percent of GDP) in these years? Import? Export? Why? Who are the 3 largest trader? Importer? Exporter? Who are their 3 largest trade partner? Why? Estimate the gravity model in these years and explain the result.

Topic 2 Labor Productivity Is there any correlation between unemployment rate and trade relative to GDP? Do wages reflect productivity in these years? Do countries export those goods in which their productivity is relatively high? Find several industries’ data and check that. Explain the results for above questions.

Topic 3 Trade &Income Inequality How does the wage of unskilled workers change? Skilled workers? How does the prices of unskill-intensive goods change? Skill-intensive goods? Choose some countries’ data to analyze the above questions and explain the results. Re-check the Leontief paradox for the countries you choose.

Topic 4 Has Growth in Developing Countries Reduced the Welfare of Developed ones? How does the GDP of developing countries change? How does the terms of trade for them change? How does the terms of trade for developed countries change? Any connection between these two? What do you think?

Topic 5 Foreign Direct Investment Where does the FDI flow to? Where does the FDI from? How does the pattern of FDI change in these years? Explain your results.

Topic 6 Trade Policy How does the tariff change? How does this change affect the trade? How about the effect of trade agreement? Choose some countries and industries to analyze the above questions and explain your arguments.

Project requirement When I say some, I mean 3 or more countries’ data and the time period you can find. The larger dataset, the better. This will be a full English course, so all the present material will be in English.