HBUS-230: The Global Economy

Whether you aspire to be a creative producer, business entrepreneur, or develop solutions to social or environmental issues, understanding how the world economy functions is increasingly important to how you work and what you produce. This course provides an overview of the global economy - its history and eras of development, and how it functions. We will review GDP as an economic measure of output, how governments attempt to manage growth and employment, and measures beyond GDP in assessing a country's well-being. We will discuss how economies interact including how trade and globalization is evolving. Recent trends and challenges in the capitalist system will be examined, including income inequality across various dimensions, and the impact on labor of the "information age" including the advent of the gig economy. We will also review major economic thinkers and discuss alternatives to the current economic structure.