Course Syllabus

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Semester & Location:

Fall 2024- DIS Stockholm
Type & Credits:

Core Course - 3 credits
Study Tours:

Visby, Sweden (Gotland) & Helsinki, Finland
Major Disciplines:

Economics, Finance, and Political Science
Prerequisite(s):

One course in intermediate or advanced microeconomics at university level.
Faculty Members:

Fairouz Hussien (current students please use Canvas Inbox)
Time & Place:

Time: Mondays & Thursdays | 14:50 - 16:10

Place: D508

Course Description

Our global economic system generates astounding wealth and unprecedented individual freedom. It also creates many problems, including inequality, financial instability, and massive environmental destruction. Some of these problems grow to become crises with international impact.

How nations respond to crises is greatly influenced by a cocktail of factors, including the economic systems in place and how they process and allocate resources, what are the ruling government forms, what kind of policies and regulations are passed (and to whose benefit), market organizing, trade agreements and alliances (with who, for what), and developmental capabilities.

To compare economic systems is to compare ways to process information and make decisions – especially when faced with challenging and uncertain circumstances. This comparison is the study of comparative economics. In comparative economics, we compare economic systems, policies and strategies, and turn towards a facet of economics that is hard to measure, hard to predict, yet vital for navigating and understanding the economy.

In this course, we will compare a selection of economies and how they respond to crises. We will take a look at a variety of policies, economic systems, resource scarcity and allocation, and how the EU has responded to some of the global crises over the past many years.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students are expected to understand:

  • The complex relations between capitalist economics and democratic politics
  • How different economic systems and forms of government result in different responses to crises.
  • Increased familiarity with policies, how they are written and used in crisis responses.
  • Market dynamicity and its interplay with policy responses.
  • Resource scarcity and allocation, and the conflicts affecting the related decision-making.
  • The EU, its foundations and basic operation, as well as its many institutions.
  • A closer look at a variety of crises, and how they were handled.
  • To further develop essential skills – in analytical thinking and in both oral and written presentation.

Faculty

Fairouz Hussien

PhD @ Stockholm School of Economics, M.Sc. @ Hanken School of Economics. Co-founder of the SSE Methods Lab, and co-founder of SIDI (Stockholm Interdisciplinary Initiative) at DIS Stockholm. Research focus on economic regulation, essential industries, and power dynamics. Expertise from the airline industry. Coffee enthusiast and a book collector.

Reading list

All readings are available for download in the modules.

    1. Brada, J. (2021). A Historiography of Comparative Economics. In: Douarin, E., Havrylyshyn, O. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50888-3_2
    2. Krueger, A. O. (2005, January 14). Shared experience: What reforming economies have in common. International Monetary Fund. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp011405
    3. Thelen, K. (2012). Varieties of Capitalism: Trajectories of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity. Annual Review of Political Science, 15(1), 137–159. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-070110-122959
    4. Goodman, J., & Loveman, G. (1991). "Does Privatization Serve the Public Interest?" Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec.
    5. Corlet Walker, C., Druckman, A., & Jackson, T. (2021). Welfare systems without economic growth: A review of the challenges and next steps for the field. Ecological Economics, 186, 107066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107066
    6. North, D.C. (1991). "Institutions." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 97-112. DOI: 10.1257/jep.5.1.97.
    7. Fligstein, N. (1996). Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions. American Sociological Review, 61, 656-673. DOI: 10.2307/2096398.
    8. Green, J. & Hay, C. (2015) Towards a New Political Economy of the Crisis: Getting What Went Wrong Right, New Political Economy, 20:3, 331-341, DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2014.951432
    9. Vogt Isaksen, J. V. (2018). The Framing of Immigration and Integration in Sweden and Norway: A Comparative Study of Official Government Reports. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 10(1): pp. 106-124. DOI: http://doi.org/10.2478/njmr-2019-0033Links to an external site. Accessible at https://journal-njmr.org/articles/abstract/10.2478/njmr-2019-0033Links to an external site.  
    10. Gutiérrez Rodriguez, E. (2018). The Coloniality of Migration and the “Refugee Crisis”: On the Asylum-Migration Nexus, the Transatlantic White European Settler Colonialism-Migration and Racial Capitalism, Refuge, 34(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050851arLinks to an external site.  
    11. Statistics Sweden. (2023). Ensamkommande barn 2015 Boende, utbildning och sysselsättning 2022 (Unaccompanied children 2015 Housing, education and employment in 2022). Integration: Report 18. Accessed from https://www.scb.se/contentassets/220ef0cac69e47aa8b44907d3fdf7714/le0105_2023a01_br_be57br2301.pdfLinks to an external site.
    12. Pearce, D.W. (2002). An Intellectual History of Environmental Economics. Annual Review of Energy and The Environment, 27, 57-81.
    13. Delbeke, J., Klaassen, G., van Ierland, T., & Zapfel, P. (2009). The Role of Environmental Economics in Recent Policy Making at the European Commission. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 4(1), 24–43. doi:10.1093/reep/rep020
    14. Liebenberg, S., Haines, R., & Harris, G. (2015). A theory of war economies. African Security Review, 24, 307 - 323.
    15. Andriessen, T., Morrow, O., & van der Horst, H.M. (2022). Murky moralities: performing markets in a charitable food aid organization. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15, 293 - 309.
    16. Blommstein, H.J. (2006). Why is Ethics Not Part of Modern Economics and Finance? A Historical Perspective. DOI: 10.3917/fbc.024.0054.
    17. Kshetri, N., & Voas, J. (2017). The Economics of “Fake News.” IT Professional, 19(6), 8–12..pdf
    18. Humprecht, E. (2018). Where “fake news” flourishes: a comparison across four Western democracies. Information, Communication & Society, 1–16.
    19. Steiner‐Khamsi, G. (2010). The Politics and Economics of Comparison. Comparative Education Review, 54(3), 323–342. doi:10.1086/653047 

Field Studies

Field Study 1: Ekonomiska Museet

Time:

      • 11:00 to 15:00.

Location:

      • Ekonomiska Museet

Agenda:

      • 11:00 - We meet at the museum. The guide will come and get us from the entrance at 11, and will take us to our classroom in the premises.
        • 11:15 - We will begin with introductions, then have a little talk about the location (the museum), and we will go over the activity/task that you all will be working on. You will have time to prepare 
      • 12:30 - Our guided tour begins. Make sure to make the most of having an expert from the museum and collect as much relevant information as you can.
      • 13:20 - The guided tour ends, and you will then have about 40 minutes to polish your assignment and collect additional data if needed.
      • 14:00 - We meet at the museum restaurant Rosengården where we will enjoy some fika together and talk about your results.
      • 14:45 - Wrap-up + prep for tomorrow.
      • 15:00 - End of Field Study #1

Field Study 2: Case Workshop with Natalie Bye: The Immigration Crisis and European Responses

Time:

      • 08:30 to 12:00.

Location:

      • DIS Classroom 1D-508

Agenda:

      • Preparation instructions for the students:

          1. Source something related to refugee migration that you find interesting. It can be a picture, a news article, a headline, an academic article, an object, a poem, a song, a story or anything else that is somehow related to refugee migration and that you think is interesting. Be ready to show it and tell your classmates about it (in 1 or 2 minutes). 
          2. Identify at least 1 term or concept from the readings that you are unfamiliar with. Look up the definition and be prepared to explain it to your classmates. You will explain it informally in approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Hence, a formal presentation is NOT required. 
          3. Think about reading #4, the report about the unaccompanied children from 2015. Make some brief notes about your understanding and view on the current situation for the immigrants discussed in the report. You will use these notes during the workshop. 

        Readings (all available for download in the Modules):

        1. Vogt Isaksen, J. V. (2018). The Framing of Immigration and Integration in Sweden and Norway: A Comparative Study of Official Government Reports. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 10(1): pp. 106-124. DOI: http://doi.org/10.2478/njmr-2019-0033Links to an external site. Accessible at https://journal-njmr.org/articles/abstract/10.2478/njmr-2019-0033Links to an external site.  
        2. Gutiérrez Rodriguez, E. (2018). The Coloniality of Migration and the “Refugee Crisis”: On the Asylum-Migration Nexus, the Transatlantic White European Settler Colonialism-Migration and Racial Capitalism, Refuge, 34(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050851arLinks to an external site.  
        3. Statistics Sweden. (2023). Ensamkommande barn 2015 Boende, utbildning och sysselsättning 2022 (Unaccompanied children 2015 Housing, education and employment in 2022). Integration: Report 18. Accessed from https://www.scb.se/contentassets/220ef0cac69e47aa8b44907d3fdf7714/le0105_2023a01_br_be57br2301.pdfLinks to an external site.
            • Links to an external site.As this report was only published in Swedish, a copy in English, translated by Google Translate is provided to you. 
            • The compulsory reading is:
              • Introduction pages 7 to 9,
              • Alone in Sweden today pages 14 to 25,
              • Concluding remarks pages 26 & 27,
            • but you are of course welcome to read the whole report.

 

Approach to Teaching

Learning is not a top-down process, but a social exchange of information to construct knowledge

In this course, learning will be facilitated through the following:

  • Lectures: Lecturing will be used to provide students with essential knowledge on the subjects discussed in this course.
  • Group negotiations: students will be introduced to contexts and cases, with the expectation that they will negotiate with one another to produce the best solutions to the presented problems.
  • Self-initiated learning: students will be expected to seek knowledge in groups, and assess their validity critically.
  • Readings: the readings for this course are here to support your learning by providing more depth and perspective to comparative economics, and all that it entails. It is expected that the students do the readings when so assigned.

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to actively participate in class, engage with the readings and the ongoing discussions. Since some work will be done using laptops, students are expected to bring theirs with them to class.

1 missed attendance = 1 written task to be submitted. In other words: most of the course activity will be taking place within teaching hours. Absence from a session, however, means that the student must submit a make-up assignment related to the topic of discussion.

 

Assignments (Please visit the "assignments" page for more detailed instructions!)

Percent

Participation: this component reflects the level of engagement and activity in the course. It is assessed through three elements:

  • Attendance
  • Mind maps
  • Q&A assignment

30%

Study Tour Tasks: to fully engage with the study tours and their intended learning objectives, students are expected to complete the following:

  • Short Study Tour to Visby, Gotland: "The Perks and Perils of an Island Economy"
  • Long Study Tour to Helsinki, Finland: "Through Finnish Eyes: Surviving & Thriving"

35%

Course Project

  • Policy proposal
  • Mid-term presentation
  • Mid-term opponing
  • Final presentation
 35%

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on: 

 

DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org

Course Summary:

Date Details Due