Macroeconomics
Part II: Business Cycles
Winter 2012 (2nd term 2011/12)
Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
UPF Graduate
Program in Economics, Finance and Management
Weeks 1-4 and week 10 of this
course are taught by Fabio Canova.
Lectures and practice session:
Monday, 9:10 - 11:00, room 20.055
Tuesday, 9:10 - 11:00, room
20.055
Practice session: Fridays 14:00
(Emma Duchini, emma.duchini@upf.edu)
Office hours:
Tuesday afternoon, by email
appointment (tvanrens@crei.cat).
Problem sets:
Problem sets are posted on
Tuesday after class, and are due in class on Monday.
Problem set 1
Problem set 2
Problem set 3
Problem set 4 – Matlab code to help you solve the model in Dynare
Problem set 5 – Matlab code
Exam:
Wednesday March 21, 9:00-13:00,
room 40.006
Exam questions (part II of the
course only)
Official grading guidelines
Supplementary materials:
NBER business
cycle dating committee
Slides on business cycles: data and
facts
Matlab codes for solving the RBC model with Dynare
Note on
income and substitution effects on consumption
Note on the half-life of
unemployment adjustment
Reading list
1. RBC model
*David Romer (1996). Advanced Macroeconomics, chapter 4
Kydland, Finn E. and Edward C. Prescott (1982). Time to Build and Aggregate
Fluctuations. Econometrica, 50(6), pp.1345-1370.
*King, Robert G. and Sergio T. Rebelo (1999).
Resuscitating Real Business Cycles. In: John B. Taylor and Michael Woodford
(eds), Handbook of Macroeconomics, volume 1B, pp.927-1007.
Hall, Robert E. (1997). Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of
Time. Journal of Labor Economics, 15(1), pp.S223-S250.
2. Business cycles
*Stock, James H. and Mark W. Watson (1999). Business Cycle Fluctuations
in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series. In: John B. Taylor and Michael Woodford
(eds), Handbook of Macroeconomics, volume 1A, pp.3-64 (also NBER WP 6528).
Agresti, Anna-Maria, and Benoît Mojon (2001):
"Some Stylized Facts on the Euro Area Business Cycle" in I. Angeloni, A. Kashyap, and B. Mojon
eds., Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area, Cambridge University
Press. (also ECB WP #95)
Kydland, Finn, and Edward C. Prescott (1990): "Business Cycles: Real Facts
and a Monetary Myth," Quartely Review, Federal
Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Jordi Gali (1999). Technology, Employment, and
the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?
American Economic Review, 89(1), pp. 249-271
Jonas D. M. Fisher (2005). The Dynamic Effects of Neutral and
Investment-Specific Technology Shocks, Working paper.
Stock, James, and Mark W. Watson (2005): "Understanding Changes in
International Business Cycle Dynamics" Journal of the European Economic
Association, September 2005, v. 3, iss. 5, pp.
968-1006
Ramey, Garey, and Valerie A. Ramey (1995):
"Cross-Country Evidence on the Link Between Productivity and Growth,"
American Economic Review, vol. 85, no. 5., 1138-1151
Backus, David K., Patrick J. Kehoe (1992): "International Evidence
on the Historical Properties of Business Cycles," American Economic Review
82, 864-888.
Stock, James, and Mark W. Watson (2002): "Has the Business Cycle
Changed and Why?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual
2002, MIT Press. (also NBER WP #9127).
3. Unemployment
*Richard Rogerson, Robert Shimer and Randall Wright (2005). Search
Theoretic Models of the Labor Market. Journal of Economic Literature, 43 (4):
959-988, sections 1-4.3
Christopher Pissarides (2000). Equilibrium
Unemployment Theory, 2nd edition. Cambridge: MIT Press, chapter 1
*Robert Shimer (2005). The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment
and Vacancies, American Economic Review, 95(1): 25-49.
Marcus Hagedorn and Iourii Manovskii
(2007). The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies
Revisited, working paper
Eva Nagypal and Dale Mortensen (2007). More on
Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations, Review of Economic Dynamics, 10(3), pp.
327-347
4. Monetary policy and inflation
David Romer (1996). Advanced Macroeconomics, chapter 6
*Jordi Galí (2008). Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle,
chapters 1, 2 and 3
Jordi Galí and Mark Gertler (2007).
"Macroeconomic Modeling for Monetary Policy Evaluation," Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 21(4), pp.25-46
Christiano, Lawrence J., Martin Eichenbaum, and Charles
L. Evans (1998). Monetary
Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End? in J.B. Taylor and M.
Woodford eds., Handbook of Macroeconomics, volume 1A, pp.65-148
Jordi Galí (1999). Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?, American Economic Review, 89(1), pp.249-271
Background reading:
Paul Krugman on Economics
in the Crisis
Ricardo Caballero on the Pretense-of-Knowledge
Syndrome
Robert Solow, Sidney Winter,
Scott Page, David Colander and V.V. Chari on Building
a Science of Economics for the Real World
Olivier Blanchard on The State of Macro
Narayana Kocherlakota.
Some
Thoughts on the State of Macro
Paul Krugman. How
Did Economists Get It So Wrong? NY Times Magazine, September 6, 2009
Letters
replying to the article
Mulligan, Casey B. (2009). Is Macroeconomics Off Track?,
The Economists' Voice: Vol. 6, Iss. 10, Article 6
Da Silva, Sergio (2010). Comment on Casey Mulligan:
Keynes in Both Fresh and Salt Water, The Economists' Voice: Vol. 7, Iss. 2, Article 1
Barbera, Robert J. (2010). If
It Were a Fight, They Would Have Stopped It in December of 2008, The
Economists' Voice: Vol. 7, Iss. 2, Article 3
Mulligan, Casey B. (2010). Comment on Barbera:
Your Gift Will Make You Rich, The Economists' Voice: Vol. 7, Iss. 2, Article 4
Thijs van Rens | IDEAS/RePEc | Google Scholar | ResearchGate