Course Objective:

This course covers most of the core topics in macroeconomics, including national income accounting, growth theory, business cycles, theories of inflation and unemployment, and the effects of monetary and fiscal policies. Both Keynesian and Classical approaches to business cycles will be discussed. The course will also discuss theories of exchange rate determination and explore the effects of international capital flows and trade imbalances.

Course Structure:

The course is divided into three main parts. The first part focuses on economic growth, the second part focuses on business cycles, and the third part focuses on macroeconomic policy. The hope is that the theory you learn in the first two parts will help provide better answers to the policy questions discussed in the third part.

  1. BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: [ Introduction and Overview & National Income Accounting]

  2. STATIC (ONE-PERIOD) MODEL: [Labor Supply & Demand, Competitive Equilibrium]

  3. UNEMPLOYMENT: [The Mortensen-Pissarides Model]

  4. ECONOMIC GROWTH: [Malthusian Model, Solow Model & Endogenous Model]

  5. A DYNAMIC (TWO-PERIOD) MODEL OF THE ECONOMY: [Consumption ,Saving, & Investment]

  6. MONEY AND BUSINESS CYCLES: [Money and Infation, Measuring Business Cycles, Market-Clearing, & Keynesian ]

  7. OPEN-ECONOMY MACROECONOMICS: [ International Trade & Capital Flows,Money & Exchange Rates, & IS-LM]

  8. MACROECONOMIC MODELLING: [Matlab with Dynare]

  9. SPECIAL TOPICS & EXPERIMENT PARTICIPATION: [Experimental Macroeconomics]

Note: A complete lecture video for all the topics is available upon request: [fabdulsa@sfu.ca]