Macro Reading Group

The Macro Reading Group presents the opportunity to young economists in the Berlin area, to meet on a regular basis to discuss a previously chosen topic paper or book chapter in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas between students who are starting their own research.

The reading group is similar to a research seminar, where usually at the beginning of each session someone briefly present the topic at hand and also has prepared some questions to discuss. However, in contrast to a research seminar, the reading group should foster open discussions in a more casual way. Moreover, the topics are macro related (theoretical or empirical) and are also chosen by the same group in advance. The topics vary and range from the newest and “hottest” article to some textbook chapter or even some “classics” depending on the group current interests.

BSE participants of the Berlin Macro Network's reading group can obtain three credits (ECTS) for their participation.


If you are interested in joining the Macro Reading Group please contact us at berlinmacronetwork@gmail.com.

Info: tba

Next Topic: tba

Required reading: tba


Past Topics:

  • Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages? (Guerrieri, Lorenzoni & Straub, 2020)

  • Women, Wealth Effects, and Slow Recoveries (Fukui, Nakamura and Steinsson, 2019)

  • A Plucking Model of Business Cycles (Dupraz, Nakamura and Steinsson, 2019)

  • The Neo Fisher Effect (Uribe, 2019)

  • NK model with banking sector and negative interest rates (Eggertsson et al., 2019)

  • Financial Frictions and the Wealth Distribution (Fernandez-Villaverde et al., 2019)

  • MMT Debate (Wray (2019): "MMT- A Primer on macroeconomics for sovereign monetary systems" (selected sections); Michell (2019) "Kelton and Krugman on IS-LM and MMT"; Rogoff (2019): "Modern Monetary Nonsens")

  • What anchors for the natural rate of interest? (Borio, Disyatat and Rungcharoenkitkul, 2018)

  • Financial Heterogeneity and the Investment Channel of Monetary Policy (Ottonello and Winberry, 2019)

  • Monetary Policy and the consumption channel with Het. Agents ( Kaplan, Moll, and Violante, 2018 AER)

  • The New Keynesian Transmission Mechanism- A Heterogeneous-Agent Perspective (Broer, Harbo-Hansen, Krusell and Oeberg 2019)

  • "Solving heterogeneous-agent models by projection and perturbation" (Reiter, 2009JEDC)

  • "Examining Sustainable Growth in Detail" (Nicolas Paul Cerkez, 2018 )

  • "Diagnostic Expectations and Credit Cycles" (Bordalo, Gennaioli and Shleifer, 2018)

  • "Money and trust: lessons from the 1620s for money in the digital age" (Isabel Schnabel and Hyun Song Shin (2018))

  • "Frictional Coordination" ( Angeletos, 2018)

  • "Monetary Policy and Inequality under Labor Market Frictions and Capital-Skill Complementarity" (Dolado et al., 2018)

  • Financial Panic and Credit Disruptions in the 2007-09 crisis (Bernanke, 2018 & discussion by Blanchard)

  • Is this time really different? Yield-curve inversion, Monetary Policy and the next crisis (Bauer & Mertens, 2018 & Engstrom & Sharpe, 2018)

  • Macroprudential Policy: Promise and Challenges (Mendoza, 2016)

  • “Monetary policy implications of state-dependent prices and wages” (Costain, Nakov, Petit, 2018)

  • Forward Guidance, Puzzles and Bounded Rationality (Farhi and Werning, 2017, Gabaix, 2018)

  • "Inequality, Leverage and Crises" (Kumhof, Rancière and Winant, 2015)

  • Central Bank Digital Currencies (Barrdear and Kumhof, 2016)

  • "Banks are not intermediaries of loanable funds — and why this matters" (Jakab & Kumhof , 2015)

  • "Wholesale Banking and Bank Runs in Macroeconomic Modelling of Financial Crises" (Gertler et al., 2016)

  • New Macro Puzzles (Eggertsson et al., 2018)

  • "Is there something really wrong with Macroeconomics?" (Stiglitz, 2017; Christiano et al., 2017; Reis, 2017)

  • "Financial credit market shocks propagation- Evidence from SVAR" (Prieto et al., 2016)

  • From RBCs to NK-DSGEs (De Vroey, 2016, Chp. 15-18)

  • Lucas' Revolution from a historical perspective (De Vroey, 2016, Chp. 9-11)

  • Survey Models with Financial Frictions (Brunnermeier, Thomas and Sannikov, 2012)

  • Models with occasionally binding constraints (Guerrieri and Iacoviello, 2015)