The course is a general introduction to economic development, with a focus on sustainable development and conflict and aims at allowing students to understand and analyse critically the essential aspects of the current phase of globalisation both in its real and monetary aspects, that is related to trade, labour and capital markets.
The course focuses on the development of monetary theories during the XX century, through the readings of original texts. The first part of the course is dedicated to John Maynard Keynes' "General Theory". Successively, Milton Friedman’s contributions and the revival of “quantitative theory” and the strong criticism proposed by Kaldor will be analysed. A key and final role in the course will be played by Minsky’s hypothesis on structural financial instability and Mandelbrot’s criticism of standard financial theory.