ACADEMICS

Academic Readings

Political Science/American Studies- Dr. John Baker

Course Syllabus

Readings

• Sycip, W. Asia Perspectives on Business and Management, Economic Success and Governance. Philippines: University of the Philippines Press, 1996 (Chapters 4 and 5)
• "Constitutional Foundation for the United States Economy" by Professor John S. Baker
• The Federalist: The Gideon Edition, by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison; edited by George Carey and James McClellan, 2001: by The Liberty Fund. (online edition) http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/jbaker/

Economics- Dr. Andy Morriss

Course Syllabus and Reading Guide

Class 1: Market "Experiment" - No Reading Assignment

Class 2: Spontaneous Order & Markets

• Reading Assignment: Friedrich A. Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society, American Economic Review, v. 35(4), pp. 519-30 (1945). http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
• Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson Part 1

Class 3: The Role of Property Rights in Economic Development

• Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (2000), pp. 1-67

Class 4: Class Experiment - Small Group Discussions

• Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, Property Rights for the Poor: Effects of Land Titling, Ronald Coase Institute Working Paper Number 7 (2009) http://coase.org/workingpapers/wp-7.pdf

Class 5: Trade and Comparative Advantage

• Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson Part 3
• Douglas A. Irwin, Free Trade Under Fire (Princeton University Press, 2nd ed., 2005), pp. 25-49
• Alan Blinder, Free Trade in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics at: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FreeTrade.html
• The Index of Economic Freedom Annual, http://www.heritage.org/index/

Class 6: The Role of the Entrepreneur

• Mark Casson, "Entrepreneurship," Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, available at: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Entrepreneurship.html. This short reading will be supplemented with a documentary film in class, The Call of the Entrepreneur, made by the Acton Institute.

Class 7 and Class 8: The Trade Debate

Students will divide into 12 teams before this class, based on the following topics. Each team will get 10 minutes to make a presentation to the group on their position. Basic readings provided but each team should do additional research to support your position. See Reading Guide for further details.

• Topic A (Teams 1 and 2): Environmental Conditions

  Base Reading

• Erlinda M. Medalla & Dorthea C. Lazaro, Does Trade Lead to a Race to the Bottom in Environmental Standards? Another look at the issues, Philippine Institute for Development Studies Discussion Paper No. 2005-23 available at http://www3.pids.gov.ph/ris/dps/pidsdps0523.pdf
• Daniel C. Esty, Bridging the Trade-Environment Divide, J. Econ Persp. 15: 113-130 (2001) available at: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hiscox/Esty.pdf (coming soon!)

Debate Question: Should trade be restricted to protect the environment?

• Topic B (Teams 3 and 4): Tax Competition

  Base Reading

  • Craig M. Boise, Regulating Tax Competition in Offshore Financial Centers, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1266329

  Debate Question: Should tax rates be harmonized across nations to prevent "unfair" tax competition?

• Topic C (Teams 5 and 6): Labor Standards

Base Reading/Viewing

• Wilson Center, Should Labor Standards Be Included in Free Trade Agreements with the United States? available at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.play&mediaid=A29ECF62-DAB4-00EE-A0A714F477425EE9
• Phil Morgans, Fair Trade vs. Free Trade - labour standards versus double standards, Online Opinion (Nov. 2002) available at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1529
• Jagdish Bhagwati, Free Trade and Labour, (2001) available at http://www.columbia.edu/~jb38/ft_lab.pdf

Debate Question: Should countries restrict trade with countries with lower labor standards?

• Topic D (Teams 7 and 8): Arts & Culture

Base Reading

• European art and culture between free trade and cultural diversity. A delicate dialogue? (2006) available at http://www.cupore.fi/documents/conference_reader.pdf This provides an overview of the issues.

Debate Question: Should there be free trade in cultural products like movies, music, and works of art?

• Topic E (Teams 9 and 10): Agriculture

Base Reading

• Thomas Lambie, Miracle Down Under: How New Zealand Farmers Prosper Without Subsidies or Protection, Cato Free Trade Bulletin (Feb. 7, 2005) available at http://www.freetrade.org/node/110
• OECD, Tackling Trade in Agriculture (Nov. 2005) available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/45/35686834.pdf
• Anuradha Mittal, Free Trade Doesn't Help Agriculture, FPIF Strategic Dialogue (Feb. 2007) available at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4021
• Gawain Kripke, Trade Can Play a Role in Agricultural Development, FPIF Strategic Dialogue (Feb 2007) available at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4023

Debate Question: Should countries protect domestic production of food through trade restrictions?

• Topic F (Teams 11 and 12): Monetary Controls

Base Reading

• Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian, We must curb international flows of capital, Financial Times (Feb. 25, 2008) available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bee0b4b2-e3a5-11dc-8799-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fbee0b4b2-e3a5-11dc-8799-0000779fd2ac.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Frodrik.typepad.com%2Fdani_rodriks_weblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fnonsensical-arg.html,
• Paul Krugman, Capital Control Freaks, Slate (Sept. 27, 1999) available at http://www.slate.com/id/35534
• Kristen J. Forbes, Capital Controls: Mud in the Wheels of Market Efficiency, Cato Journal 25: 153-166 (2005) available at http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj25n1/cj25n1-16.pdf

  Debate Question: Should countries be able to limit movement of capital in and out of their economies through regulatory measures?

Class 9: Public Goods, Free Riders, Commons Problems, and the Role of Government

• James Buchanan & Richard Musgrave, Public Finance & Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State (1999), pp. 63-89, 107-137.

Class 10: The Financial Crisis & the History of the World Economy

•  Viral V. Acharya, et al., A Bird’s Eye View: The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008: Causes and Remedies in Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System (2009) pp. 1-56. (coming soon!)

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Financial Turmoil Timeline available at http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/global_economy/Crisis_Timeline.pdf

• Barry Eichengreen, The Last Temptation of Risk, The National Interest Online (April 2009) available at http://www.nationalinterest.org/PrinterFriendly.aspx?id=21274

• Lord Adair Turner, The Financial Crisis and the Future of Financial Regulation (2009) available at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Communication/Speeches/2009/0121_at.shtml

• Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World ( Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 1-16.

• Arnold Kling, Unchecked and Unbalanced (Rowman & Littlefield 2010) pp. 39-85.

Class 11: Coase and the Problem of Social Cost

• Ronald Coase, "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 3, pp. 1-44 (1960). Available at: http://www.sfu.ca/~allen/CoaseJLE1960.pdf

Class 12: Small group discussions on the financial crisis

• Michael Lewis, Wall Street on the Tundra, Vanity Fair (April 2009) available at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904

Class 13: Hayek & The Road to Serfdom

• Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (condensed version) available at http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf, pp. 31-62

Class 14: Economics of Religion

• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, pp. 788-814 (Liberty Fund edition), available at http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Smith/smWN.html (Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article 3d)
• Laurence R. Iannaccone, Introduction to the Economics of Religion, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXVI, Sept. 1998, pp. 1465-1496 available at http://religionomics.com/old/erel/S2-Archives/Iannaccone%20-%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Economics%20of%20Religion.pdf
  

Bonus Class: Review Session

 No new reading, but look over what you’ve read so far and come to class ready to try to pull all this together.