College ~25 hours
International Economics Mastery: Trade and Finance
No economy stands alone. This path explains why nations trade, who gains and who adjusts, how exchange rates are determined, and how capital flows link — and sometimes destabilize — economies. You will move from the clean logic of comparative advantage to the messier realities of tariffs, currency regimes, and financial crises, ending with the debate over globalization itself. The trade simulator lets you feel the effects of a tariff before you analyze one.
Steps
Step 1: Why Nations Trade
Comparative advantage: the logic that even a country better at everything still gains from trade.
Step 2: Trade Models
From Ricardo to Heckscher-Ohlin: what determines trade patterns and who gains within each country.
Step 3: Trade Policy: Tariffs and Quotas
How barriers raise domestic prices, who gains, who loses, and the net welfare cost.
Step 4: Winners, Losers, and Adjustment
Trade creates aggregate gains but concentrated losses — the economics of adjustment and compensation.
Step 5: Exchange Rates
What determines currency values, and how movements ripple through prices and trade.
Step 6: Balance of Payments
The accounting of a nation's transactions with the world: current account, capital account, and what balances.
Step 7: Capital Flows and Crises
When cross-border finance amplifies booms and busts: sudden stops and currency crises.
Step 8: Trade and Development
Export-led growth, infant industries, and how openness interacts with poverty reduction.
Step 9: Capstone: Globalization Debates
Assemble the full toolkit to evaluate claims about globalization — gains, distribution, and sovereignty.