Macroeconomics Courses

ECON 701: Advanced Macroeconomics I
Models of business cycles, including real business cycles and models with various frictions, including pricing frictions. The class will emphasize tools for solving modern dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models.

ECON 702: Advanced Macroeconomics II
First half studies recent theoretical developments in monetary economics, including models with search frictions, models that integrate money into more traditional real business cycle models, the welfare cost of inflation and optimal monetary policy. The second half introduces stylized facts about inequality and studies heterogeneous agent models with uninsurable idiosyncratic risk, covering issues such as the distributional effects of fiscal and monetary policy, and political economy.

ECON 747: Macroeconomics of Imperfect Capital Markets
Introduction to theory of imperfect capital markets and applications to topics including limited commitment, the financial accelerator, liquidity, bubbles, crises, the role of credit in monetary economics, and frictions in international capital flows.

Related Course

ECON 630: Macroeconomic Computation
Covers essential computational methods frequently used in macroeconomics. Focuses on approximating the solution to dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, both representative agent and heterogeneous agent. Also covers macroeconometric methods such as Generalized Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood and Vector Autoregressions.

Field Requirements in Macroeconomics

Major Field: three of ECON 701, 702, 630 and 747. Students may ask to substitute one course in political economy, computational economics, international economics, or some other field related to the student's interests; such requests will be considered by the macro faculty on a case by case basis.

Average grade of B+ or better in courses, and field paper with following deadlines: initial proposal due September 15 of the third year, comments from faculty by October 1. First draft by December 1, comments from faculty by December 20. Final draft due February 1. Revisions may be requested on the final draft, with due date specified by macro faculty.
The faculty considers passing the major field as a commitment to work with you as a thesis writer, so the field paper must meet high standards. If your initial proposal or first draft lacks sufficient potential, the faculty will tell you so and encourage you to choose another topic.

Minor field: two of ECON 701, 702, 630 and 747; must take at least one of 701 and 702. Average grade of B+ or better in courses.

back to previous page