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International Finance - Winter 2023 Winter 2023
ECON 332

Published Dec 26, 2022

Class Schedule

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Instructor & TA (Teaching Assistant) Information

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Course Description

ECON 332:

An analysis of the main issues in international finance. Topics include international borrowing and lending, intertemporal gains from trade, current account and balance of trade movements, the determination of exchange rates, and foreign exchange markets.

Prereq: ECON 201, 202 or ECON 201, 206 or ECON 206, 290. Antireq: (For Mathematics students only) BUS 443W

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:
This course introduces students to basic principles, concepts and tools to analyze standard international monetary economics theories. The course material will help students to analyze current international economic affairs in terms of theoretical models. The theories learnt in this course will address topics like international monetary framework and financial crisis which could be utilized for an in-depth analysis of global economic crises.

Tentative Course Schedule

WeeksLecture Topic/Chapter
Part-I: Introduction to International Macroeconomics 
Jan 09Chapter 1: The Global Macroeconomy
Part-II: Exchange Rates
Jan 16Chapter 2: Introduction to Exchange Rates and the Foreign Exchange Market
Jan 23Chapter 3: Exchange Rates I: The Monetary Approach in the Long Run
Jan 30Chapter 4: Exchange Rates II: The Asset Approach in the Short Run
Part-III: The Balance of Payments
Feb 06Midterm I
Feb 13Chapter 5: National and International Accounts: Income, wealth, and the Balance of Payments
Feb 20Reading Week - No Class 
Feb 27Chapter 6: Balance of Payments I: The Gains from Financial Globalization
Part-IV: Applications and Policy Issues
Mar 06Chapter 7: Balance of Payments II: Output, Exchange Rates, and Macroeconomic Policies in the Short Run
Mar 13Chapter 8: Fixed Versus Floating: International Monetary Experience
Mar 20Midterm II
Mar 27Chapter 9: Exchange Rate Crises: How Pegs Work and How They Break
Apr 03Chapter 11: Topics in International Macroeconomics 
Apr 10Review

 

Texts / Materials

Title / Name Notes / Comments Required
Robert C. Feenstra and Alan M. Taylor, “International Macroeconomics” 5th edition, Worth Publishers, 2021, ISBN:978-1-319-21850-8 eTextbook Yes

Additional Resources:

Additional resources (e.g. lecture slides, practice problem sets) are posted on LEARN. Students are responsible for downloading and saving course material on LEARN before the access to their courses is shut off.

Student Assessment

Component Value
Practice Midterm I - Saturday, February, 04 via LEARN - Chapters 1 - 4 5%
Midterm Exam I - Monday, February 06 (In Class) - Chapters 1 - 4 25%
Practice Midterm II - Saturday, March, 18 via LEARN - Chapters 5 - 8 5%
Midterm Exam II - Monday, March 20 (In Class) - Chapters 5 - 8 25%
Final Exam (Cumulative) - TBA 40%
Total 100%

Learning in this course results primarily from lectures, in-class discussions, home readings, and practice problem sets. Students' learning and progress in this course will be evaluated on an individual basis.

Please Note:

  1. For some chapters, selected portions will be covered as a part of the course material.
  2. If a student misses a lecture for any reason, it is the student’s responsibility to obtain class lecture notes and other relevant material.
  3. There will be no make-up midterms.
  4. If a midterm exam is missed, given proper documentation, the weight will be transferred to the final exam.
  5. All exams, midterms and final, are individual and closed-book.
  6. Both the in-class midterms and the final exam will consist of a mix of short answer questions, analytical problems, numerical calculations, mathematical derivations, true-false, multiple-choice, and fill-in-the-blank questions, and will draw on material covered in the lectures.
  7. It is mandatory that students bring their UW student ID card to the midterms and the final exam.
  8. Your grades on midterms will be posted on LEARN. Please immediately report to the instructor any discrepancy between the posted and actual grades.
  9. Only the Registrar’s Office can issue final grades. Hence, marks for the final exam will not be posted on LEARN.
  10. Missing the final exam is a very serious matter which automatically results in a grade of zero for the final exam and possibly a failing grade for the course. Please carefully read the Economics Department policy on deferred final exams for instructions.
  11. No deferred final exam will be provided for students who missed all the exams (including the final exam) in this course. For instructions on the deferred final exam policy please refer to the Deferred Final Exam Policy, located at https://uwaterloo.ca/economics/current-undergraduates/policies-and-resources.
  12. You are encouraged to contact the course instructor or course TA for any questions on the course material and outlines, evaluation scheme, and the final exam.

 

Communication and Feedback:

I will be using LEARN to post relevant course material. Students are encouraged to contact with instructor or TA to seek help or to discuss course-related matters. The instructor’s office hours are listed on page 1. If scheduled office hours conflict with your schedule, you can request an appointment with me via email (saeed.rana@uwaterloo.ca). Please ensure that your email has a subject line starting with “ECON 206” this will minimize the risk of your email being overlooked or perceived as spam.

Piazza:

All class-related discussions will be conducted via Piazza. The quicker you begin asking questions on Piazza (rather than via emails), the quicker you'll benefit from the collective knowledge of your classmates and instructor. I encourage you to ask questions when you're struggling to understand a concept—you can even do so anonymously.

 

Guidelines and Expectations:

For getting the most out of this course grade-wise and in terms of learning, active participation on your behalf is essential. In order to make this journey successful, each student’s cooperation, diligence, sincerity, and above all a great deal of interest and involvement in learning the course material are important. This will ensure that we receive the maximum value-added from the course.

I will deliver my lectures using slides. The slides will be distributed through LEARN. I will also use the blackboard/whiteboard to cover additional material. The slides are not lecture notes. They are mainly providing outlines of what will be discussed in class. I will set the lecturing pace based on the assumption that you have copies of the slides with you in class.

Students are assumed to have read the material ahead of the lectures. Please refer to the Tentative Course Schedule on page 2 for the reading schedule. Students should NOT expect me to talk about every single textbook page. The lectures will focus on the most important and challenging parts of the material. More basic material will be left for the students to study on their own. I will refer to this more basic material in the lectures, hence the need to read ahead to understand the lectures.

Assignment Screening

No assignment screening will be used in this course.

Administrative Policy

Mental Health Support

All of us need a support system. The faculty and staff in Arts encourage students to seek out mental health support if they are needed.

On Campus

Due to COVID-19 and campus closures, services are available only online or by phone.

  • Counselling Services:  counselling.services@uwaterloo.ca / 519-888-4567 ext. 32655
  • MATES:  one-to-one peer support program offered by the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) and Counselling Services

Off campus, 24/7

  • Good2Talk:  Free confidential help line for post-secondary students. Phone: 1-866-925-5454
  • Grand River Hospital: Emergency care for mental health crisis. Phone: 519-749-4300 ext. 6880
  • Here 24/7: Mental Health and Crisis Service Team. Phone: 1-844-437-3247
  • OK2BME: set of support services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning teens in Waterloo.  Phone: 519-884-0000 extension 213

Full details can be found online on the Faculty of Arts website

Download UWaterloo and regional mental health resources (PDF)

Download the WatSafe app to your phone to quickly access mental health support information.

Territorial Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that we are living and working on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as Neutral), Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes ten kilometres on each side of the Grand River.

For more information about the purpose of territorial acknowledgements, please see the CAUT Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory.

Cross-listed courses

Please note that a cross-listed course will count in all respective averages no matter under which subject code it has been taken. For example, a PHIL/PSCI cross-list will count in a Philosophy major average, even if the course was taken under the Political Science subject code.

Economics Department Deferred Final Exam Policy

All deferred Final Exam requests for economics courses are administered by the Economics Undergraduate Office. Please consult the Deferred Exam Policy at 

https://uwaterloo.ca/economics/undergraduate/resources-and-policies/deferred-final-exam-policy.

University Policy

Academic integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. [Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.]

Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of their university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for their actions. [Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.] A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate associate dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline. For typical penalties, check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71, Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes they have a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72, Student Appeals.

Note for students with disabilities: AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, Room 1401, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term.

Turnitin.com: Text matching software (Turnitin®) may be used to screen assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments are documented. Students' submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the first week of the term and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin in this course.

It is the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor if they, in the first week of term or at the time assignment details are provided, wish to submit alternate assignment.