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Econ720 - Fall 2023

Advanced Macroeconomic Theory - Prof. Lutz Hendricks - UNC

Syllabus

Schedule

Announcements

  • Oct-21: Midterm solutions

  • Oct-4: The midterm will cover OLG material.

  • Sep-26: Office hours are now MW 12 to 1pm (to avoid conflicts with faculty meetings).

Organization

Recitation: Fri (details to be announced)

TA: Hyunjae Lee

Review problems are for your practice and not to be turned in. Many are questions from previous exams.

Textbooks

  • We do not closely follow a text, but a good one is:
    • Acemoglu, Introduction to Modern Economic Growth, MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0691132921
  • Also useful:
    • Dirk Krueger’s Macroeconomic Theory manuscript (this tends to move around on the web).
    • Per Krusell’s Real Macroeconomic Theory manuscript, 2014 version
    • Blanchard, Olivier, and Stanley Fischer. Lectures on macroeconomics. MIT press, 1989.
    • McCandless, George T., and Neil Wallace. Introduction to dynamic macroeconomic theory: an overlapping generations approach. Harvard University Press, 1991.
    • De La Croix, David, and Philippe Michel. A theory of economic growth: dynamics and policy in overlapping generations. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
    • Ljungqvist, Lars, and Thomas J. Sargent. Recursive macroeconomic theory. MIT press, 2018.
    • Barro, R., and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. "Economic growth second edition." (2004).
  • Additional readings are in the slides.
  • Reading strategy: I strongly recommend to read several expositions for each topic. Only after seeing the same material from different angles can on really understand it.
  • The most useful texts by topic:
    • For the basics of macro models: Krusell and Krueger (see links above).
    • For OLG: McCandless & Wallace and De la Croix.
    • Standard growth model (also with money): Blanchard & Fischer
    • Economic growth: Barro & Sala-i-Martin, Acemoglu
    • Recursive competitive equilibrium: Krusell and Krueger.
  • I am listing a lot of older references because they tend to be more readable / less focused on technical material. Acemoglu's book can be notation-heavy.

How to Study for this Class

Everyone studies differently. Still, I would made these suggestions:

  1. Read textbooks. There are many new concepts in graduate econ courses. Each book explains them a little differently. It helps to read several expositions to really absorb how things work.
  2. Read efficiently. For first pass reading, just skim the math. Try to understand the flow of the argument of each chapter without getting distracted by technical details. Then start over and read in detail the math that you need to understand in detail. Skip the rest.
  3. If your background is not in economics, it helps to read the first chapters of texts (especially of Krusell's text) to understand terminology and fundamentals.
  4. Obviously, do as many problems as you can (avoiding the temptation to look at the answers too early).

Previous Exams