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Economics Department

 

ECN 137:  Macroeconomic Policy
Professor Kevin D. Salyer
Spring Quarter, 2010
Office Hours: Monday, 3:30-5:30pm SS&H 1120.

TA:  Paul Gaggl

Course Outline and Readings

COURSE REVIEW SLIDES

       Introductory Slides (Day 1 Lecture)

1.  Review Material

Math Review Handout

Stats Review Handout

 
2.  Fiscal Policy (3/29 - 4/16)
  

Social Security and Medicare: The Impending Fiscal Challenge

Auerbach, American Fiscal Policy in the   Post-War Era

Doepke, Lehnert, Sellgren, Chapter 14

Extra Readings (Not Required)

Blinder, The  Case against the Case Against Fiscal  Policy


Sims, Comments on Blinder


(Blinder-Sims  slides )


Barro Op-Ed on the Stimulus




Nordhaus - Climate Change .  ( Slides )

Who was Frank Ramsey ?


Class lecture notes:
(to be posted after lecture)

Fiscal Policy, Part I

Testing Ricardian Equivalence

Paul Bergin's Lecture Slides (current account)


3.  Time Inconsistency (4/19 - 4/26)

S. Fischer, Dynamic Inconsistency Cooperation, and the Benevolent, Dissembling Government

4.  Monetary Policy: Evidence and History (4/28 - 5/05

C. Romer, Changes in Business Cycles: Evidence and Explanations    

Slides for C. Romer article


M. Goodfriend, Monetary Policy Comes of Age

 

MIDTERM - FRIDAY MAY 7
Midterm Review Slides

5.  Rational Expectations and Policy Evaluation (5/10 - 5/17)


Handout on Lucas article

Notes from press release - Lucas wins Nobel Prize.  For the entire release click here



6.  Not Responsible for this material
Rational Expectations and the Policy Invariance Proposition (5/19 - 5/26)

7.  Modern Monetary Policy (5/28 - 6/02)

Blinder, Chapter 1

          (intro slides )

Poole, W., Optimal Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model


             Class Notes (Poole analysis simplified)

(responsible only for Sections I and II - especially the graphs)  - Class Slides

Walsh, C., Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

      Slides for Walsh model

B. McCallum - Monetary Policy rules

             

Homework

Homework #1 (Due in Section 4/5) : 
Watch Ed Prescott's Nobel Prize lecture (which can be found at:
http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2004/prescott-lecture.html

Answer the following:
1.1. Prescott talks of the transformation in macroeconomic policy. What were the two characteristics of the “old” strategy?
2.
2. What was the characterization of optimal policy before and after the transformation?
3.
3. Why does the Principle of Optimality Fail?

Homework #2 (Due in Section 4/19) - ANSWER KEY  

Homework #3 (Due in Section 5/03)  - Answer Key
         
          Homework #4 (Due in class 6/02) - Answer Key

 

Practice Problems

Midterm  Spring 2002 , Answers

  Final Spring 2002

  Midterm Spring 2003 , Answers

  Final Spring 2003 , Answers

Final Spring 2004 , Answers

Final Spring 2005

Midterm Winter 2007 , Answers

Final Winter 2007 , Answers

Midterm 1 , Fall 2007, Answers

Midterm 2 , Fall 2007, Answers

Midterm , Winter 2009, Answers   
Midterm ,  Spring 2010, Answers


Interesting Web Sites

Economic News:

Resources for Economists

Economic Data: