Topic: The Economic Crisis

Catalog description

Utilizing the news of the day as well as macroeconomic and business-cycle theory, this course will study the global economic crisis that erupted starting in 2007. Attention will be paid to the causes of the crisis, to how economic shocks developed into a crisis, and to policy responses and proposed solutions of the crisis. We will consider both immediate causes of the crisis, rooted in problems in housing and financial markets, and underlying conditions, such as debt and profitability problems, that caused shocks to develop into full-scale crisis. The quasi-nationalization of much of the financial sector will be studied, as will the TARP and PPIP programs, emergency Federal Reserve actions, and the Administration’s stimulus package.