Much has changed since the beginning of the 1970s: the ascent of finance, the fall of communism, the rise of new emerging powers, the birth of the EU, the great crisis of 2008 and the following sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the Arab Spring, etc. But how has this come about? And where are we heading to? During the course, we’ll attempt to answer the previous questions by comparing present and past events and by investigating the current relationships between the various actors on the global scene. Particular emphasis will be placed on the economic and institutional dynamics of both advanced and developing countries and their possible evolution in the years to come.

The course consists of three interwoven segments:

––Different paths of economic development across the centuries: the rise of the European powers, the development of the Americas, the role of the new emerging powers;

––The XX century: ideology, politics & economics, the 1929 crisis and its aftermath, the European recovery after WWII, the rise of the Asian Tigers.

––The fall of the Iron Curtain and its consequences: the growth of the financial sector, the deindustrialization process in the advanced economies, the economic and financial crisis, the new world economy.

The class is meant to help the students develop the competencies to better decipher the political and economic environment they’re going to live in the future.