Macroeconomic Policy

Course goals

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:

Explain on two levels (in plain English and using a model):

• Effects of a shock on the macroeconomy
• Effects of fiscal and monetary policy and their limitations

Carry out empirical exercises:

• Predict Recessions using simple forecasting model
• Analyze impact of shocks using Local Projection techniques

Content

Please note the prerequisites for this course at the bottom of the course description.

The goal of the course is to obtain an overview of the modern macroeconomics and to acquire the skills to be able to (i) isolate the business cycle component of the macroeconomic series and analyse its properties, (ii) predict recessions using the yield spread (iii) estimate impulse response functions using local projection techniques.

Academic Skills:

• Adequately summarize a key macroeconomic paper from the literature, describe its impact on the literature and explain whether and when it holds any relevance.
• Perform simple empirical macroeconomic exercises using time-series methods.

Format
The course comes with lectures, tutorials and guest lectures. The lecturer explains concepts and economic models, while tutorials are used to discuss exercises.

Prerequisites
The course is open to all students enrolled in the master program Economic Policy. For students from other programs, sufficient knowledge of macroeconomics (either a course in Advanced Macroeconomics or Finance) and econometrics (the Master course 'Empirical Economics' or another Advanced Econometrics course) is required.

In case online access is required for this course and you are unable (or do not want) to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.