International trade
TITLE: Country case study on trade theories and patterns
Find trade data for a country of your choice (can be any country of the world, except the UK or the USA), and apply different trade theories to explain these data.
Your answer should include a focus on important trading partners and trade products/services/industries.
Notes:
As a minimum, you should find and use data on the country’s main trading partners (import sources and export destinations), and main traded commodities (or commodity groups). You are also welcome to use any other relevant trade/ economic data if you feel this will help you answer the main question.
Embed any data tables/graphs into your essay (do not put data tables into appendix). Data table content will not contribute to the word count.
The trade theories to be considered are those addressed in the half of the module: the Mercantilist approach, theories of Absolute and Comparative Advantage, the Heckscher-Ohlin model, New Trade theories, explanations of intra-industry trade, the Gravity model.
A good essay answer should be well structured and present arguments in a logical order. You should demonstrate a clear ability of linking/applying different theories of trade to real-world trade data.
Do not spend a lot of time describing different trade models; concentrate on their predictions to explain trade patterns of the country of your choice.
Discuss which trade models/theories are the most and the least successful in explaining your data.
