Topics in Macroeconomics（宏观经济学专题）

Instructor: Zhao, Hongchun(课程教师:赵洪春)

Email: zhaohongchun@nsd.pku.edu.cn

Course Dates and Time: April 21-24(授课日期:4月21日-4月24日)；每天14:30-18:00

Classroom Location:106 Lecture hall(授课教室:经管楼106报告厅)

Instructor Description（教师简介）

Zhao, Hongchun is a macroeconomist who studies economic growth, broadly-defined human capital and RBC models. He got his PhD degree from Economics Department, University of Southern California. His research has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals. He is a writer for “Bystanders”, which is a professional blog affiliated to Caixin, and wrote essays for the FT Chinese and Economic Herald. He previously served on the faculty of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

赵洪春，南加州大学经济系博士，宏观经济学家，主要研究领域为经济增长，人力资本和RBC（真实经济周期）模型。他的研究已经在许多同行评议的期刊上发表。他是《财新》博客和FT中文网的专栏经济学家。曾任职于华中科技大学。

Course Description

Macroeconomics is a young discipline of economics, whose intellectual motivation is to figure out stable relationships between aggregate observables such as output, unemployment, prices, and current account balances. Since its relatively short history, macroeconomics has not converged into widely accepted narratives nowadays. Another reason why we still observe much debates on macro issues today is that macroeconomics is about general equilibrium and sometimes counter intuitive, thus testing macroeconomic hypotheses are more difficult than testing in other branches in social sciences. In this short course, the instructor intends to discuss three specific macro topics, in addition to necessary concepts: growth models, business cycle accounting and its implications for macro modeling, as well as government policy issues. This course is also designed to help students think like macroeconomists, through discussions on ongoing macro phenomena.

Course Materials

(BF) Lectures on Macroeconomics, by Blanchard and Fisher, MIT Press, 1993

(RMT) Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, by Ljungqvist and Sargent, MIT Press, 2012

Lecture notes

 Course Outline

Lecture 1 Introduction and basic concepts (day 1)

Chapter 1 of BF

Readings:

The Empirics of Growth by Bosworth and Collins

Parameterized Expectations Approach by Albert Marcet

PEA by Albert Marcet

Lecture 2 Growth facts and growth accounting (day 2)

Chapter 15, sections 15.1-15.3, 15.5, and 15.7 of RMT

Readings:

Accounting for Cross-country Income Differences by F Caselli

Explaining Cross-country Income Differences by E McGrattan and J Schmitz

Long-run Implications of Investment-specific Technological Change by J Greenwood, Z Hercowitz, and P Krusell

Capital-skill Complementarity and Inequality by P Krusell, L Ohanian, J Rios-Rull, and G Violante

Relative Prices and Relative Prosperity by Hsieh Chang-tai and P Klenow

Openness, Technology Capital and Development by E McGrattan and E Prescott

1974 by J Greenwood and M Yorokoglu

An Accounting Method for Economic Growth by Zhao Hongchun

Where has all the education gone? Everywhere but into growth by Zhao Hongchun

Lecture 3 Business Cycle Accounting (day 3)

Readings:

Business Cycle Accounting by VV Chari, P Kehoe, and E McGrattan

Lecture 4 Policy issues (day 4)

Readings:

Latin America in the rear view mirror by H Cole, L Ohanian, J Schmitz, and A Riascos

The Finnish Great Depression: From Russia with love by Yuri Gorodnichenko

Modeling Great Depressions: The Depression in Finland in the 1990s by J Conesa, T Kehoe, and K Ruhl

New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression by Cole and Ohanian

• 附件1：参考文献.zip