Welcome to Macroeconomics!

We hear about economic growth, inflation and unemployment in the news practically everyday. We read about the Fed increasing interest rates or the Swiss National Bank giving up the Swiss France ceiling. But what do these terms really mean and how do they affect our lives and our businesses? During the course, we will answer these questions, looking at specific countries and trying to understand what is happening in the news.

The best way to learn is to do. There are two bigger projects we will be working on:

• You will work for Business Investments Global (BIG) and the company is thinking of expanding. Your first step is to get an overall feeling for the macroeconomic situation of one of the countries under consideration, looking at the risks and potential. You can choose the county you want to research (a different one for each student). This study will be spread out over the whole course, building each part as we learn the theory.
• As a team, you will take part in a monetary policy committee meeting, looking at the current situation of the country and deciding the best monetary policy action. This will take place after the part on economic policies.

(The guidelines are available under 'Useful Documents')

The course is run as a flipped classroom. There is a webpage with all the information for each topic. You will watch the videos or read the textbook and check your understanding with a short quiz at home, so that in class we have time for questions, discussion, more advanced applications and real-world examples. Make sure to check out each week what you have to do on the topic page (see course schedule on the syllabus or the link below).

I look forward to an exciting semester,

Henrietta Carbonel