Globalization and the Social Contract

The rapid integration of the global economy raises a fundamental question for society: to what extent does the globalization of markets require an accompanying globalization of governments? This Seminar will explore this idea through several steps, asking why individuals organize themselves in societies, how economic and political institutions arise, and how the process of globalization has created new opportunities as well as new challenges for societies seeking to solve collection-action problems. Students will be introduced to basic economic tools of analysis such as game theory, which will be used to understand the ideas of early philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls, Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, as well as the more modern writings such as those from economists Friedman, Samuelson, North, Sen, and Stiglitz. Our goal for the Seminar is to recognize how incentives and constraints shape individual behavior and how institutions can be designed in light of this to address the problems that confront us as citizens both of a country and of a planet.