Economic integration is a process furthering the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour across national borders, leading to (more) integrated markets on regional and global levels. According to classical and neoclassical economic theory, trade liberalisation with regard to goods and services as well as the factors of production brings about positive welfare effects. In reality, economic integration means far-reaching social transformations, which are often experienced as having polarising effects: generating winners and losers in different regions, countries, sectors, and social strata. As recent developments have shown, the debate on ‘free trade versus protectionism’ is far from over, and the proliferation of austerity policies gives new reason to ponder about interactions of ‘globalisation and the welfare state’. Against this backdrop, the aim of this course is to clarify the state of socioecoomic research on the social conditions and consequences of economic integration, and to identify interesting venues for future research.
The course forms part of the specified PhD curriculum in Socioeconomics.

Participants will get acquainted with different approaches to studying the effects of economic integration, and gain orientation in a vast cross-disciplinary literature. They will be able to pinpoint socioeconomic approaches as well as assess their merits with regard to more conventional approaches across different topics related to the overall theme of the course. Moreover, by preparing literature reviews, which summarise academic debates and/or empirical research on specific topics, they will develop their ability to evaluate the ‘state of the art’ in a field and raise new or open research questions.

The course rests on individual reading and writing activities, presentations by teacher and doctoral researchers, and class discussions. Participants will write a literature review on a specific topic (adjustable to their research interests) and compile a learning diary summing up their insights from course readings and discussions.

Literature review (40%), learning diary (40%), active class participation (20%).

sabine.frerichs@wu.ac.at