Descripción y contextualización de la asignatura

In this course students acquire the theoretical skills and computational tools needed to understand the behavior of aggregate economic variables. Taking into account that this may be the first approximation of the students to economics, emphasis is placed on a rigorous understanding of basic concepts. The course covers basic macro models common to introductory macroeconomics in most graduate programs. The course includes an introduction to Matlab programming, an essential analytical tool for economic research that will also be needed in the Monetary Markets course. Matlab lectures and regular Macroeconomics lectures will be normally held in the classrooms assigned by the Dean's Office.

Convocatoria ordinaria: orientaciones y renuncia

Grading: The grade will be based on homework assignments and a final exam:



* Homework assignments: there will be assignments that students will have to hand in to get a passing grade. These assignments will worth 30% of the final grade. Students are required to work in teams. The number of students per team will depend on the class size, and the team composition will differ for each assignment. Only one assignment answer per team will be handed in, but bear in mind that the instructor might ask you to carefully explain the answer that your team hands in. Assignments ARE required within specific due dates.

* Final exam: the final examination will count for the remainder of the grade (i.e. 70%). The final exam is scheduled on a date that will be announced the first day of the course in September. A minimum mark of 3.5/10 will be required.

* Regardless of how teaching is organized (face-to-face, remote or a combination of both), evaluation will preferably be face-to-face. If this is not possible, the final exam will be conducted using the resources available in eGELA. The student will have a limited time to download the final exam form from eGELA and upload the solution to that platform. The format of the answer sheet will be a pdf file, which in any case must be perfectly legible in order to enable its evaluation. This exam is individual, so in order to guarantee its fulfillment, the instructor of the subject may request an oral test to check the answers after the exam has been corrected and through individualized conversation with the student.



* There is no need to explictly let the instructor know that the student does not want to take the exam in the first call.

Convocatoria extraordinaria: orientaciones y renuncia

* A second call will be open after students take the third and fourth block exams. The evaluation system defined for the first sitting holds.

* Regardless of how teaching is organized (face-to-face, remote or a combination of both), evaluation will preferably be face-to-face. If this is not possible, the final exam will be conducted using the resources available in eGELA. The student will have a limited time to download the final exam form from eGELA and upload the solution to that platform. The format of the answer sheet will be a pdf file, which in any case must be perfectly legible in order to enable its evaluation. This exam is individual, so in order to guarantee its fulfillment, the instructor of the subject may request an oral test to check the answers after the exam has been corrected and through individualized conversation with the student.

Temario

1. Matlab programming

(a) Basic Operations

(b) Programming

(c) Non-linear equations

(d) Plots

(e) Calibration



2. Finite horizon economies

(a) Motivation

(b) The overlapping generations model

(c) An application. Social security: fully funded system vs. pay-as-you-go.



3. Infinite Horizon I: Exogenous growth

(a) Part I: Introduction and motivation

(b) Part II: Neoclassical growth. Microfundations. Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans.



4. Infinite Horizon II: Real Business Cycles

(a) Motivation

(b) Defining, dating and stylized facts of business cycles

(c) Theories of fluctuations

(d) The Basic Real Business Cycle model

Bibliografía

Bibliografía básica

Topic 1:

- Echevarria (2020), "Matlab: A Short Introduction"

- The MathWorks, Inc. (2017), Getting Started, R2017a, Matlab, Primer.



Topic 2:

- Blanchard and Fischer (1989), Lectures on Macroeconomics, The MIT Press

- De la Croix and Michel (2002), A Theory of Economic Growth, Cambridge U. Press.

- Diamond, P. (1965), "National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model", American Economic Review, 55, no. 5, pp. 1126-1150.



Topic 3:

- Barro, R. J. and X. Sala-i-Martín (2004), "Economic growth", Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

- Krueger (2007b): "Macroeconomic Theory", mimeo.

- Novales, A. et al. (2009), Economic Growth. Theory and Numerical Solutions. Springer

- Romer, D. (2006), Advanced Macroeconomics, 3rd edition. McGraw-Hill Irwin.

- Sims (2011), "Notes on Log-Linearization", mimeo, University of Notre Dame

- Sala-i-Martin, X. (1990a), "Lecture Notes on Economic Growth (I): Introduction to the Literature and Neoclassical

Models", NBER working paper series, w3563.

- Sala-i-Martin, X. (1990b), "Lecture Notes on Economic Growth (II): Five Prototype Models of Endogenous Growth",

NBER working paper series, w3564.

- Sala-i-Martin, X. (1997), "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions", The American Economic Review, 87(2), May.

- Sorensen and Whitta-Jacobsen (2010), Introducing Advanced Macroeconomics: Growth and Business Cycles. McGraw-Hill

- Weil, D. (2008), "Economic growth" Second Edition Pearson Education, Addison-Wesley.



Topic 4:

- Blanchard, O. J. (2016), "Do DSGE Models Have a Future?", Peterson Institute for International Economics, PB 16-11

- Cooley, T. and E. Prescott (1996): "Economic Growth and Business Cycles", in Frontiers of Business Cycle Research,

Ch. 1, Ed. by T. Cooley and E. Prescott. Princeton University Press: Princeton. New Jersey.

- Hodrick, R. and E. P. Prescott (1977), "Post-war Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit,

and Banking, 29, pp. 1--16

- King R. and S. Rebelo (1999) "Resuscitating Real Business Cycles," in Handbook of Macroeconomics, Vol. 1B, Ed. by J.

B. Taylor

- Krueger (2007c), Ch. 2 and 10 "Quantitative Macroeconomics: An Introduction", mimeo.

- MacCallum (1988) "Real Business Cycle Models," in R. Barro, ed., Modern Business Cycle Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard niversity press, 1989)

- Romer, D. (2006), Advanced Macroeconomics, 3rd edition. McGraw-Hill Irwin.

- Romer, P. (2016), "The Trouble With Macroeconomics", mimeo, Stern School of Business New York University

- Sorensen and Whitta-Jacobsen (2010), Introducing Advanced Macroeconomics: Growth and Business Cycles. McGraw-Hill

Revistas

- American Economic Review



- Journal of Monetary Economics



- Journal of Political Economy



- The Quarterly Journal of Economics

Enlaces

- http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Economics/Growth/datasets.htm



- http://www.nber.org/data/



- http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/



- http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-p/data/ecfindata.php



- http://www.econ.ku.dk/Faculty_And_Staff/showID.asp?profile_id=103



- http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/km426/index.htm



- http://www.heijdra.org/



- http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/Indexmuppet.htm



- http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/ameco/index_en.htm



- http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/



- http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm



- http://www.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/professuren/vwl/wg/resources



- http://www.aeaweb.org/RFE/index.php



- http://www.aeaweb.org/students/index.php