The increasing globalization of trade, financial flows and knowledge diffusion is a source of potential opportunities and challenges for both developing and advanced economies.

What are the conditions for global integration to be of mutual benefit for all countries?

The course will first provide an introduction to the analysis of the implications of integration into the world economy from a developmental perspective, and to the relevance of macroeconomic and other proactive policies to support structural change and technological upgrading.

The need for greater policy flexibility, however, faces a reduced number of effective policy instruments (e.g. WTO agreements that enlarged the scope of multilateral disciplines to include rules that directly prescribe certain domestic regulations). A second part of the course will therefore provide a clarification of the concept of national policy space and the rationale for multilateral disciplines, emphasizing how economic integration and multilateral rules can also expand, rather than just constrain, national policy space.