Virtual - Economic Issues in Regional Integration (ERI)

Source details

Training Program.
Qualifications: Participants are expected to have an advanced degree in economics or equivalent experience and be proficient in the use of spreadsheets.

Mid-level to senior officials in central banks, ministries of finance, and other interested ministries and agencies in countries that are part of a regional integration arrangement or are exploring or planning the organization of such an arrangement.
Staff from intergovernmental or supranational regional organizations.

Main objective: broaden participants’ understanding of economic, monetary, and financial integration.
Approach: drawing on theory and on case studies from experiences in several regions.
Topics covered:
- Requirements for economic and monetary integration.
- Trade, financial, and monetary integration.
- Costs and benefits of the integration process.
- Political economy aspects of integration.
Pedagogy:
- Workshops designed to deepen participants’ knowledge of specific issues that may emerge in economic and monetary integration.
- Participants use case studies with country data to make assessments and are required to deliver their conclusions in short presentations.

Analyze the various types of regional integration and cooperation, as well as the dynamics of the integration process.
Analyze the costs and benefits of various integration schemes for their countries.
Assess the degrees of convergence in various macroeconomic variables in the run-up to deeper integration, and the degree of convergence afterward.
Summarize economic and political arguments regarding integration that may affect their own country.