Economics 390: Topics in Macroeconomics
This site provides resources for students in Economics 390
at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison for Fall 2013 Semester
Source:"A Storm That Reshaped the U.S. Economy," WSJ 5 Sep 2013.
Syllabus | Academic Misconduct |
Important Dates |
Downloadable Course Materials and Information Sources |
Department of Economics
Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs |
LECTURE: MW 2:30-3:45, SocSci 6203
Instructor
Professor Menzie Chinn
Office Hours: M 1-2; W 4-5
Office: 7418 Social Sciences Bldg.
Phone: (608) 262-7397
email:
mchinn [at] lafollette.wisc.edu
Home Page
Teaching Assistant
Edward Zhong
Office Hours: Th 12:15-2:15
Office: 6413 Social Sciences Bldg.
email:
eyzhong [at] wisc.edu
Econ 390 TA website
Econ 390 Syllabus in PDF file.
This course will address current issues in modern macroeconomic policymaking, including: (1) The efficacy of fiscal policy, (2) conventional and unconventional monetary policy at the zero lower bound, (3) post balance sheet crisis recoveries, (4) the global saving glut and global imbalances, (5) determinants of sovereign debt crises, and (6) the euro area crisis.
A portion of the course will address the analysis and implications of financial regulation or non-regulation, especially in regard to the financial crisis of 2008. Prerequisites: Econ 301/311 and 302/312, Econ 310. If you have completed Econ 410 with a prior statistics course other than 310, you can enroll with my authorization.
The required textbook is Blanchard and Johnston, Macroeconomics 6/e (Prentice-Hall, 2012). Other required readings are listed below. In addition, some readings from Econbrowser will be assigned.
For background, I have placed Mishkin, The Economics of Money, Banking and Financial Markets (9/e), and Hester, The Evolution of Monetary Policy and Banking in the US on reserve.
Academic Integrity is critical to maintaining fair and knowledge based learning at UW Madison. Academic dishonesty is a serious violation: it undermines the bonds of trust and honesty between members of our academic community, degrades the value of your degree and defrauds those who may eventually depend upon your knowledge and integrity.
Examples of academic misconduct include, but are not limited to: cheating on an examination (copying from another student's paper, referring to materials on the exam other than those explicitly permitted, continuing to work on an exam after the time has expired, turning in an exam for regrading after making changes to the exam), copying the homework of someone else, submitting for credit work done by someone else, stealing examinations or course materials, tampering with the grade records or with another student's work, or knowingly and intentionally assisting another student in any of the above.
The Dept. of Economics will deal with these offenses harshly following UWS14 procedures (http://students.wisc.edu/saja/misconduct/UWS14.html):
1. The penalty for misconduct in most cases will be removal from the course and a failing grade,
2. The department will inform the Dean of Students as required and additional sanctions may be applied.
3. The department will keep an internal record of misconduct incidents. This information will be made available to teaching faculty writing recommendation letters and to admission offices of the School of Business and Engineering.
If you think you see incidents of misconduct, you should tell your instructor about them, in which case they will take appropriate action and protect your identity. You could also choose to contact our administrator and your identity will be kept confidential.
- Review Section, 11/4, 6PM, Social Sciences 4308.
- Midterm, 11/6
- Term paper due,
12/13 12/16 
- No meeting 11/27
- No meeting 12/11
Downloadable Course Materials
- Lecture 1 (9/4) [link]
- Problem Set 1, due 9/23 (link corrected 9/14) [link]
- A Different Kind of Crowding Out [link]
- Lecture 5 (9/18) [link]
- Problem Set 1 Answer Key, due 9/23 [link]
- Lecture 7 (9/25) [link]
- Lecture 8 (9/30) [link]
- Lecture 10 (10/7) [link]
- Problem Set 2, due 10/14 [link]
- Lecture 11 (10/9) [link]
- Lecture 13 (10/16) [link]
- Problem Set 2 Answers, due 10/14 [link]
- Lecture 14 (10/21-23) [link]
- Handout on Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure [link]
- Practice Midterm [link]
- Lecture 17 (10/30) [link]
- Lecture 18A (11/4) [link]
- Lecture 18 (11/4) [link]
- Midterm answer key [link]
- Midterm statistics/grade curve [link]
- Paper Assignment [link]
- Lecture 21 (11/13) [link]
- Lecture 22 (11/18) [link]
- Handout on Debt and Deficits [link]
- Problem Set 3, due 12/4 corrected Problem 4.2, 12/2 [link]
- Lecture 26 (12/2) [link]
- Problem Set 3 Answers, due 12/4 [link]
- Lecture 27 (12/9) [link]
Required On-line Readings
- ISLM: Notes on IS-LM [link]
- IMF10: "Will it hurt: Macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidation," Chapter 3 in IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2010.[link]
- ADAS: Notes on Aggregate Demand/Aggregate Supply [link]
- CC-LM: Notes on CC-LM [link]
- BB: Ben Bernanke, Alan Blinder, “Credit, Money and Aggregate Demand,” American Economic Review 78(2) (May, 1988), pp. 435-439. [link]
- BBS: Notes on Bank Balance Sheets [link]
- GHKS: David Greenlaw, Jan Hatzius, Anil K Kashyap, Hyun Song Shin, “Leveraged Losses: Lessons from the Mortgage Market Meltdown,” paper presented at US Monetary Policy Forum Conference, February 29, 2008. [link]
- MSP: Notes on Money Supply Process. See Lecture 14 (10/21-23) [link]
- Ru: Glenn Rudebusch, “The Fed’s Monetary Policy Response to the Current Crisis,” FRBSF Economic Letter 2009-17, May 22, 2009. [link]
- Ham.: James Hamilton, “Concerns about the Fed's New Balance Sheet, in The Road Ahead for the Fed,” edited by John D. Ciorciari and John B. Taylor, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2009. [link]
- BGG: Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist, "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics 78(1). (Feb., 1996): 1-15. [link]
- 4SQE: Brett Fawley and Christopher Neely, “Four Stories of Quantitative Easing,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 95(1) (2013). [link]
- KS: John Kitchen and Menzie Chinn, Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World – and At What Cost?" International Finance (2012). [link]
- Sh: Jay Shambaugh, “The Euro’s Three Crises,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2012:1. [link]
- BM-F: Olivier Blanchard and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, “Global Imbalances: In Midstream?” Staff Position Note 09-29 (Dec. 2009). [link]
- IMF12: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: 100 Years of Dealing with Public Debt Overhangs,” Chapter 3 in IMF, World Economic Outlook (October 2012). [link]
Additional Optional Readings
- Economics 302 Spring 2012.
- CBO, Long Term Budget Outlook, Sept. 2013.
- David Greenlaw, James D. Hamilton, Peter Hooper
Frederic S. Mishkin, "Crunch Time: Fiscal Crises and the Role of Monetary Policy," paper was written for the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum, New York City, February 22, 2013.
- IMF 6th Annual Research Conference
- M. Chinn, B. Eichengreen, and H. Ito, "A Forensic Analysis of Global Imbalances," Oxford Economic Papers (2013).
- Joe Gagnon, "Global Imbalances and Foreign Asset Expansion by Developing Economy Central Banks," PIIE Working Paper No. 12-5 (March 2012).
- IMF, "Unconventional Monetary Policies Recent Experience and Prospects," April 18, 2013.
- M. Chinn"Global Spillovers and Domestic Monetary Policy: The Impacts on Exchange Rates and Other Asset Prices," paper prepared for the 12th annual BIS Annual Conference, Luzern, 20-21 June 2013.
- Rogoff, "Three Wrongs Don't Make a Right" which is a response to Krugman, "Credibility All the Way Down," Conscience of a Liberal.
- Krugman, "Still IS-LMing after All These Years [link]
- David Romer, "Short Run Fluctuations" [link]
- "Schools Brief: The origins of the financial crisis," Economist, 9/7. [link]
- "Schools Brief: The dangers of debt: Lending weight," Economist (9/14) [link]
- "Schools Brief: Monetary policy after the crash: Controlling interest," Economist 9/21. [link]
- "Schools Brief: Stimulus v austerity: Sovereign doubts," Economist 9/28. [link]
- "Schools Brief: Making banks safe: Calling to accounts," Economist 10/4. [link]
- Simon Johnson, "The Quiet Coup," Atlantic, May 2009. [link]
- WSJ student subscription link
- Economist student subscription link
- Financial Times student subscription link
News Reports/Additional Readings
Tracking the Crisis and Recession
Weblogs and Perspectives
Economics and Economic Policy Links
International Organizations
U.S. Government Agencies
Current and Historical Data
- St. Louis Fed economic database Thousands
of time series on economic activity, in an easily downloadable form.
- IMF International Financial Statistics via UW Data and Information Services Center
- YCharts Macro and equity market data series.
- Yahoo finance website Current financial data.
- Google finance website Current financial data.
- ino.com Futures data.
- Federal Reserve Board data Monetary, financial and output data
collected by the Nation's central bank.
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Dept. of Commerce Data on GDP and components (the national income and product accounts) as well as other macroeconomic data.
- Bureau of the Census, Dept. of Commerce Data on the characteristics
of the US population as well as of US firms.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dept. of Labor Data on
wages, prices, productivity, and employment and unemployment rates.
- Energy Information Agency, Dept. of Energy Data on
on energy (electricity, gas, petroleum) production, consumption and prices.
- Economic Report of the President, various years. The back portion of
this annual publication contains about 70 tables of government economic data.
- Economic Indicators CEA and JEC Compilation of economic data in tabular form.
- Economic Time Series page A large collection of economic time series.
- NBER Data Specialized economic databases created by
economists associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Economics 390 Topics in Macroeconomics / UW Madison / mchinn@lafollette.wisc.edu / 8 December 2013