ASSIGNMENT: International Economics

There are two options for your assignment. Please choose one. The options are:

1. What is Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA)? How many form of RCA are there and how do they differ? What does RCA tell us about Comparative Advantage?

2. "A depreciation of the domestic currency will unambiguously improve a country's trade balance". Discuss.

Your task is to write a paper addressing one of the above for any country or countries, and for any time period of your choice.

This is a research project. I expect it to take the appearance of an academic paper and be structured as follows:

- Introduction
- Theory/Model. Find the theories or models that are relevant for the research question above. Describe the salient characteristics of these theories or models and what the models conclude.
- Empirical evidence

Find some evidence that supports (or refutes) your conclusions in the above section. You may do this in two ways - either find some literature that points to the empirical evidence of this theory/model and/or collect your own data and present your evidence. As stated above, this can be done for any country or time period of your choosing.

- Conclusions
- References

The assignment must be clearly written; any diagrams, charts etc must be clearly labelled and explained in your text and any equations defined and explained. The quality of your argument, the clarity with which you explain and illustrate the relevant concepts and the way in which you relate theory to evidence is very important here.

Length: 1500 to 2000 words, excluding references (absolutely no more than 2000).