28876 - Macroeconomics 2

Academic Year 2019/2020

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Economics (cod. 8408)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student should have acquired a good understanding of macroeconomic models used to study the determinants and evolution of output, unemployment and prices, in the short and medium run, and of issues related to the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy. In particular, he/she knows: - the role played by nominal and real rigidities in the transmission of monetary shocks and the role of rational expectations; - the determinants of unemployment; - the meaning of sustainability and solvency in the public debt dynamics; - models of the political economy of public debt and default.

Course contents

Macroeconomics 2

Contents and purpose of the course

The course is a part module of the first-year macroconomics course, and deals with the microeconomic foundations and the policy implications of market imperfections, particularly in the goods and labour market.

The first part discusses the issue of imperfect information and its implications for the transmission of monetary shocks to the real economy in a rational expectation set-up. It then looks at the consequences of asymmetric information in the credit market, the role of imperfect competition in the goods market and discusses possible justifications for price and wage rigidities in new-keynesians models. The second part analzes the modern theories of unemployment: efficiency wages, implicit contracts insider-outsider and search models, which focus on information, risk and decentralized matching and bargaining as possible explanations for involuntary unemployment. The third part looks ad fiscal policy and the explanation for, and consequences of, budget deficits and public debt. Finally, some topics concerning modern theories for financial crises are discussed.

Text Book:

Davide Romer (R), Advanced Macroeconomics, McGraw Hill

1.MicroFoundations of Market imperfections R: Ch.6

2. Theories of Unemployment, R Ch 11

3. Optimal Fiscal Policy: Debt Neutrality. Tax Smoothing. Debt default R: Ch11

4. Topics on financial crises (reading to be determined)


Readings/Bibliography

Suggested textbooks for this course are:
- David Romer (R), Advanced Macroeconomics, Mc Graw-Hill, 2006 (2nd ed)
- Blanchard, Olivier J. and Stanley Fisher, Lectures on Macroeconomics, MIT press
- Obstfeld, M, K.Rogoff, (OR), “International Macroconomics”, MIT Press
- A. Drazen, (D) Political Economy in Macroeconomics, MIT Press, 2004
- Further material for this course will be available in the personal webpage of the lecturer at this link

paolomanasse.it/teaching 

Teaching methods

Lectures, Handouts and Classes

Assessment methods

Written exam and home works

Teaching tools

Lectures, handhouts, classes

Links to further information

http://paolomanasse.it/teaching/

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Luciano Adalberto Manasse

SDGs

Decent work and economic growth

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.