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Economics 122a. Macroeconomics

Course Syllabus

DESCRIPTION AND PREREQUISITES

• The course covers business cycles, economic growth, major macro topics, and their application to fiscal and monetary policy and history.

• Highlights: – the major tools of macroeconomic analysis, particularly

understanding business cycles and economic growth and– Some major historical and policy issues.

• This course is to be taken after completing both terms of Introductory Economics. Exceptions will be rare. Calculus will be used.

• Course web page is http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/Econ122.htm

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 Readings TEXTBOOK.

N. Gregory Mankiw, Macroeconomics, 7th edition, Worth, 2010.

For textbook options, see web page.

There are many supplemental readings, available online or on the course web site.

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 Schedule

We will generally meet M W 11:35-12:50Because of schedule conflicts, we will meet here on

Friday Sept 10 instead of Wed Sept 8Also in November there will be one Friday meeting.

Class will generally run 60-65 minutes.Lectures will be posted after the class.

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Tests  and Grading

There will be one mid-term examination, which will take place in class on Wednesday, October 13. The final examination will be three hours and is Dec 13 (to be checked).

There will be four graded problem sets, four ungraded but required problem sets, and a short paper due at the end of the semester.

The grade is approximately based 45 percent on the final exam, 25 percent on the hour tests, and 30 percent on the problems and paper.

Grade distribution (given verbally in class).

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Sections There will be sections led by teaching fellows from

Department of Economics. Each student will be assigned to a section.

Sections will go over the analytical material from the course, cover questions raised by students, and review problems and exams.

Tentative section times are:Wednesday 4:00-4:50 and 5:00-5:50 pmThursday 4:00-4:50 and 5:00-5:50 pm

Wed or Thurs 7:00-7:50 and 8:00-8:50 pm

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Alternatives Alternative macroeconomics courses:

Econ 122b (Bruegemann). Roughly the same with emphasis on labor economics.

Econ 126b (Moscarini). Intensive version. More analytical and mathematical.

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Limited enrollment

Limit to 120 students. The following is the priority list: all those who got bumped last year; all seniors

and juniors economics majors; other seniors and juniors; all sophomores who are declared economic majors as of 7 pm Monday.

The balance of shoppers will be selected by lottery. Freshmen are not eligible.

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For those who have had enough macroeconomics for today...

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What is macroeconomics?

• Macroeconomics is the study of the overall behavior of economies (output, inflation, unemployment, trade balance, financial markets, …)

• The interesting point is that the total behaves differently from simple adding up of the parts (think riots and bank runs).

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Major themes

There are two major recurrent themes running through macro:

i) Business cyclesii) Economic growth

Virtually every macroeconomic issue revolves around these issues, or a confusion concerning them.

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Business cyclesOne major set of issues involves the business cycle.

What are business cycles? What are some examples?

The Great Recession.

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Real GDP over the cycle

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Shaded areas are NBER recessions. No declared end of current recession.

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.02

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60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 00 05 10

Real GDP growth (4 quarters)

Unemployment over the cycle

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Shaded areas are NBER recessions. No declared end of current recession.

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1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

BUT, even though the 1980-82 recession looks superficially similar to the 2008-2010 period, the causes and policy responses were completely different.

The Great Recession.– Housing prices peaked in mid 2006 and have fallen

about 40 percent.– In 2007, investors suddenly discovered that subprime

mortgages were much riskier than had been supposed. – This led to financial problems, especially for highly

leveraged financial intermediaries (banks, hedge funds, etc.), bankruptcies, bank runs, and other crises

– Risk premiums increased, credit was tightened, and there was a financial panic in the fall of 2008.

– The Fed responded forcefully.– The Congress passed in 2009 a major “stimulus

package”– But the economy is stuck at high unemployment and

relative stagnation ….

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Today’s major dilemma

The major tool that governments have to stimulate the economy is fiscal policy (tax cuts and expenditure increases)

But these measures will increase the large and growing government debt.

How should we balance recovery today and debt tomorrow?

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The exploding government debt

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Economic growth

Economic growth concerns the trend in output over the long run.

In macroeconomics, we use the neoclassical growth model to understand economic growth.

Asia’s economic renaissance

19Source: McKinsey (but not to be taken as good data).

Per capita growth trends in 3 big regions

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20,000

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2007

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ita (

2007

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China USSubSaharanAfrica

International macro

A final slant on these issues that is important is international macroeconomics -- a new and fascinating branch of economics.

Role of exchange rates, international trade, currencies.

Biggest issues now are the huge current account deficit of the US and the big surplus of China. How will these resolve? In a gradual unwinding? Or in a financial meltdown?

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U.S. Trade Deficit: Net exports/GDP

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60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 00 05 10

Net exports/ GDP

-What does this mean? That US is consuming more than it is producing.- Major questions: how long can this go on, and how will it end (gradual adjustment or hard crash)?

Keynes’ central insight on macroeconomics

“The resources of nature and man’s devices are just as fertile and productive as they were.

The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid. We are as capable as before of affording for everyone a high standard of life and will soon learn to afford a standard higher still.

But today we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.”

[J.M. Keynes, The Great Slump of 1930

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Why study macroeconomics?

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Because you, yes YOU, may be the next Ben Bernanke – in charge of rescuing the world economy from the wreckage of some future depression!