MACROECONOMICS - 2

This course will provide conceptual and analytical tools to understand the behavior of the main macroeconomic indicators, as output, inflation, employment, interest rates, and exchange rates. These tools are useful to investigate and describe relevant macroeconomic problems, especially related to the European Union. The tools can also be applied to understand the role of the economic and political institutions and to forecast the effects of their policy intervention. The goal of the course is training students to think in a structured and rigorous way about the main macroeconomic open questions. Finally, it will help students to access graduate education in the economic fields or to acquire useful expertise for policy-decision making in economics.

In particular, this second module will describe three main extensions of the models that have been presented in the first module. The first extension considers the macroeconomic impact of agents’ expectations in the decision making process. The second one is a redesign of the model in an open-economy context. The third one considers the economic dynamics in a long run perspective.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
1.1. Understand the main aggregated economic indicators.
1.2. Understand the main agents interacting in the economy and the concept of macroeconomic equilibrium.
1.3. Understand the relation between the real and the financial/monetary sides of the economy.
1.4 Understand the different time ranges of the economic analysis

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
2.1. Use the main proposed models to compute the equilibrium solutions.
2.2. Use the main proposed models to perform what-if analysis about shocks affecting the economy or economic policies.
2.3. Recognize the limitations to the applicability of the studied tools.

3. Ability to judge:
3.1. Choosing the most suitable model to address a specific problem
3.2. Recognize the impact of different parametrizations on the equilibrium solution.
3.3. Judging the effective reliability of the obtained results.

Basic knowledge of Mathematics. In particular, it is necessary to understand the Cartesian system and to be able to solve systems of linear equations.
Make reference to http://www.unive.it/pag/203/

The complete syllabus of the two modules, for a total of 12 credits is the following:
First module:
- Introduction to the main topics of macroeconomics.
- Introduction to national accounting. Price index ad inflation.
- The goods market
- The financial market
- The IS-LM model
- The labor market
- The Phillips curve
- From short to long run: the AD-AS and IS-LM-PC models

Second module:
- Introducing expectations into the IS-LM model
- Expectations, production and economic policy
- Expectations and financial markets
- The open IS-LM model
- The goods and financial markets in an open economy
- Production, interest rate and exchange rate
- Exchange rate regimes
- Economic policy in open economies
- Long run growth. The Solow model.

Macroeconomics, O. Blanchard, 6th or 7th edition

Written exam, duration around 120 minutes, with open questions of theory and exercises. The exam is passed obtaining 18 points. The value of each question is indicated in the exam.
The exam can be taken in two written partial exams, halfway through and at the end of the course.
The exam evaluates the knowledge and understanding of the fundamental concepts and models of the discipline presented in the teaching and the ability to analyze macroeconomic problems and to identify and interpret their solutions.

The course is divided into:
a) lectures with both the projection of slides and the use of whiteboards.
b) weekly exercise classes
c) individual study

Inglese

scritto

Questo insegnamento tratta argomenti connessi alla macroarea "Povertà e disuguaglianze" e concorre alla realizzazione dei relativi obiettivi ONU dell'Agenda 2030 per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile