ECON 613Macroeconomic Theory I

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Course Objectives: This course is to bring Ph.D. students close to the frontier of modern macro research. Throughout the course, I will introduce macroeconomic models and technical tools side-by-side. Models and technical tools provide a structure that accomplishes the following: i) Understand the mechanism behind human behavior and how the mechanism depends on the social environment (such as policy) ii) Connect the hypothetical data to the observed data The modern macro uses the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework to interpret economic phenomena. This approach emphasizes the ``microeconomic foundations" of macroeconomic theory. For implementation, we will use Matlab, a matrix-based programming language, for model building. I will assign theoretical and computational exercises, recognizing that this might be the first time you write the code to answer economic questions. Students are encouraged to ask insightful and precise research questions. They will be able to formulate these questions in a feasible and testable form.