Economics 105: Macroeconomics Theory , Spring 2008

I will have extra office hours on Monday, April 28, from 10am to 12pm. Practice questions for the midterm on Tuesday April 29th are available here.

The aim of this course is to use the tools of macroeconomics to address current questions in the economic policy debate, such as Should the Federal Reserve adopt inflation targeting? What are the implications of the subprime mortgage crisis? Is the U.S. trade deficit a problem? Has globalization been beneficial? The course makes extensive use of the modeling framework taught in Intermediate Macroeconomics courses such as 100B, and offers more advanced mathematical tools to examine some of the topics. Familiarity with the core material from Economics 100B, Intermediate Macro is a prerequisite, and some knowledge of econometrics (at the level of Economics 113) is necessary to understand fully the material. The course requires that you know basic economic models (i.e., economic frameworks presented in mathematical form), but we will spend most of the time using economic models to understand current economic issues. The background for our discussions is contained in the textbook.

Readings: