Master

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Roland Winkler

Content

This course introduces students to dynamic general equilibrium macroeconomics, the heart of which is the rational decision-making of representative microeconomic units – consumers and firms. We will investigate how these choices interact to yield economy-wide outcomes. The emphasis will be on building, analyzing, solving, and interpreting quantitative dynamic models to understand macroeconomic data. Topics include long-run economic growth, short-run economic fluctuations, fiscal policy, monetary policy, and asset pricing.

Learning goals

Students can use appropriate, up-to-date methods to understand and analyze problems in the domain of macroeconomics. They can read, understand and critically evaluate policy-oriented and scientific work. They can explain and apply the main concepts and insights of macroeconomics. Students understand and can critically assess macroeconomic developments.

Literature

The course is based on selected chapters from the following books:

• Garin, Julio, Robert Lester, and Eric Sims (2021). Intermediate Macroeconomics.
• Heijdra, Ben J. (2017). Foundations of Modern Macroeconomics. Third Edition.
  Oxford University Press.
• Romer, David (2018). Advanced Macroeconomics. 5th Edition. McGraw-Hill.
• Barro, Robert J., and Xavier Sala-i-Martin (2004). Economic Growth.
  2nd Edition. MIT Press.
• Gali, Jordi (2015). Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction
  to the New Keynesian Framework and Its Applications. Second Edition.
  Princeton University Press.
• Walsh, Carl E. (2017). Monetary Theory and Policy. Fourth Edition. MIT Press.

Documents/Materials

The material for the lecture and tutorials can be found on Moodle.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the winter term.
• Composition of the module: Lecture and tutorial.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

PD Dr. Markus Pasche

Content

• Stylized facts of growth, cross-country heterogeneity and convergence
• Neoclassical growth theory with exogenous technical progress
• Growth with human capital
• Endogenous growth models with R&D and innovative activities
• Environmental limits to growth

Learning goals

• Students can describe the stylized facts of growth processes, including cross-country heterogeneity and convergence, and are able to compare them with empirical data.
• Students can explain the basic mechanisms of the neoclassical growth model, including the role of exogenous technical progress
• Students can discuss the role of human capital and the importance of education in exogenous and endogenous growth models
• Students are able to describe the incentive structures behind R&D investments, and can explain the importance of different forms of innovation for endogenous growth.
• They are able to derive policy implications, and to critically discuss the limitations of growth models.
• They have the methodological competence to conduct steady-state analysis of growth models, and to discuss their stability properties,
• Students can describe the physical limitations of growth processes within an ecological environment, and they are able to critically reflect strategies of de-linking economic activities from their environmental impact.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the winter term.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

PD Dr. Markus Pasche

Content

• Stylized facts of trade
• Classical and neoclassical trade theory, based on comparative advantages
• Trade with differentiated goods and monopolistic competition
• Trade and cross-border factor mobility
• Analysis of trade policy measures, i.e. tariffs
• Political economy of trade and trade agreements

Learning goals

• Students are able to explain the various sources of comparative advantages and therefore the specialization and trade patterns. They know how the terms of trade are determined, and they can explain the implications of trade for factor prices.
• Students are familiar with differentiated goods and market forms apart from perfect competition. They understand how variety of goods create an incentive to trade.
• Students are able to analyse the trade implications of factor endowment changes and factor movements.
• They can derive the welfare effects of different protectionist measures such like tariffs, and they can critically evaluate under which specific conditions trade policy measures can be beneficial.
• Students are able to develop arguments regarding trade agreements, and they can use basic political economy arguments of trade policy.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the winter term.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Roland Winkler

Participants

Students of the program M.Sc. Economics

Content

The seminar will reflect on current topics in macroeconomics; examples are:

• Fiscal policy as a stabilization tool,       
• Unconventional monetary policy,        
• Fundamental causes of economic development,       
• Families in macroeconomics,
• Market power and the macroeconomy.
• Heterogeneity in macroeconomics,
• Financial factors in business cycles,
• The zero lower bound.

Learning goals

Students can read, understand and critically evaluate policy-oriented and scientific work. Students can understand and critically assess macroeconomic developments. They can use appropriate, up-to-date methods to understand and analyze problems in the domain of macroeconomics. They can write academically, present results clearly and structured, and discuss their results and those of others.

Organization

• Guidelines: the guidelines of the chair you can find hereExternal link.
• Takes place every year during the winter term.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Roland Winkler

Content

This course provides an introduction to the methods of business cycle analysis. The emphasis will be on the numerical solution, simulation, and evaluation of state-of-the-art business cycle models used for understanding macroeconomic data and conducting counterfactual policy simulations. We will go to the computer lab and learn how to work with the software Matlab (or its free clone Octave) and Dynare.

Learning goals

Students can explain and apply the main concepts and insights of business cycle analysis. They can use appropriate, up-to-date methods to analyze business cycles. They can use software tools for the numerical solution, simulation, and evaluation of business cycle models.

Documents/Materials

The material for the lecture and computer lab sessions can be found on Moodle.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the winter term.
• Composition of the modul: Lecture and tutorial.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. FreytagExternal link, Prof. Dr. LorenzExternal link, PD Dr. Pasche, various assistant teachers

Content

• History of economic thought
• Scientific working and scientific writing
• Methodological foundations of social science
• The economic approach to social science and its limits

Learning goals

• Students have the academic skills for reading, summarizing and properly citing scientific literature, writing own scientific texts without plagiarism and according to formal standards in a concise writing style.
• Students know different views of the foundations of science such like Karl Popper’s critical rationalism or Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift approach. They can critically reflect the borders between science and non-science and the conditions of theory production.
• Students can explain and apply the specific economic approach to social sciences, and critically reflect its interpretations and limitations. They are able to acknowledge the social conditions of science (“science as a social system”).
• Students know various schools of economic thought, how they have developed and still influencing economic science.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the winter term
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

PD Dr. Markus Pasche

Content

• Typology of financial assets and financial markets
• Theory of interest rate, i.e. risk structure and term structure
• Agency problems in financial markets (adverse selection, moral hazard)
• Principles of banking: managing risk, return, liquidity, and solvency
• Monetary aggregates, money supply process and demand of money
• Goals and strategies of central banking, transmission of monetary policy, inflation targeting

Learning goals

• Students are familiar with different types of financial assets (debt-type, equity-type)
• Students know stylized balance sheets of banks and can explain the various managements tasks of banks (risk, return, liquidity, solvency), including Portfolio and Value at Risk Approach.
• Students have a theoretical comprehension of nominal and real interest rates, their risk and term structure. They are able to interpret risk spreads and Yield Curves (with empirical data).
• Students can explain how principal-agent problems emerge in financial contracts and how they can be solved or mitigated.
• Students can distinguish different forms of monetary aggregates. They can explain how money is created in a reserve banking system, and how the central bank influences this process. They can explain the main determinants of money demand.
• Students are able to explain why inflation is a concern, how monetary policy is transmitted via various channels in order to control inflation, and why central bank independence might be useful. They can explain the function of different monetary policy tools (including unconventional measures).
• In the assignments they apply their knowledge in different contexts, check theoretical arguments by using empirical data, and develop a concise and coherent argumentation in their written answers.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the summer term
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Roland Winkler

Content

This course covers essential topics in monetary economics. The main emphasis is on the relationship among monetary policy, fiscal policy, inflation, and the business cycle. The course introduces students to the modern baseline framework – the New Keynesian model – for understanding the links between monetary and fiscal policy and the aggregate performance of an economy. We will also discuss recent developments such as using unconventional policies at the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates.

Learning goals

Students can explain and apply the main concepts and insights of monetary economics. They can explain and evaluate monetary and fiscal policy decisions. They can use appropriate, up-to-date methods to understand and analyze problems in the domain of monetary and fiscal policy. They can read, understand and critically evaluate policy-oriented and scientific work. They understand and can critically assess monetary and fiscal policy developments.

Literature

The course is based on selected chapters from the following books:

• Garin, Julio, Robert Lester, and Eric Sims (2021). Intermediate Macroeconomics.PDFExternal link
• Gali, Jordi (2015). Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction
  to the New Keynesian Framework and Its Applications. Second Edition.
  Princeton University Press.
• Challe, Edouard (2019). Macroeconomic Fluctuations and Policies. MIT Press.
• Chugh, Sanjay K. (2015). Modern Macroeconomics. MIT Press.
• Walsh, Carl E. (2017). Monetary Theory and Policy. Fourth Edition. MIT Press.

Documents/Materials

The material for the lecture and tutorials can be found on Moodle.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the summer term.
• Composition of the module: Lecture and tutorial.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

PD Dr. Markus Pasche

Content

• Methodological foundations of Behavioral Economics
• Expected utility theory and its methodological and empirical critique; results from experimental economics
• Other-regarding preferences, trust and reciprocity: theories and experimental results; evolution of preferences
• Rational expectations: theory, methodological and empirical critique; alternative hypotheses; problem of fundamental uncertainty
• Models of bounded rationality and heuristic behavior
• Policy implications of behavioral economics, i.e. nudging

Learning goals

• Students are able to critically reflect the methodological foundations of standard economic theory (rational choice).
• They know a broad range of experimental results which provide evidence for violations of expected utility theory, but also evidence for various forms of other-regarding preferences.
• They understand how a proper experimental design can help to decide whether observed data do (not) fit to given hypotheses.
• Students know different routes how to model other-regarding preferences, reciprocity or the impact of emotions.
• They have developed a broader notion of rationality which includes also norm-guided or heuristic behavior, and they can distinguish and apply different paradigms of theorizing about economic decision behavior.
• Students are able to derive policy implications from the insights of behavioral economics; they can critically evaluate different forms of “nudging”.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the summer term
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Roland Winkler

Content

This course provides a graduate-level introduction to the macroeconomics of international trade. The emphasis will be on building, analyzing, solving, and interpreting quantitative dynamic models to understand macroeconomic data. We investigate the determinants of the current account, capital flows, international borrowing and lending, interest-rate differentials, and business cycles in open economies.

Learning goals

Students can use appropriate, up-to-date methods to understand and analyze problems in the domain of open economy macroeconomics. They can read, understand and critically evaluate policy-oriented and scientific work. They can explain and apply the main concepts and insights of open economy macroeconomics. Students understand and can critically assess developments in international macroeconomics.

Literature

• Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie, and Martín Uribe (2017), Open Economy Macroeconomics. Princeton University Press.
• Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie, Martín Uribe, and Michael Woodford (2022), International Macroeconomics. Princeton University Press.

Documents/Materials

The material for the lecture and tutorials can be found on Moodle.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the summer term.
• Composition of the module: Lecture and tutorial.
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Andreas FreytagExternal link, PD Dr. Markus Pasche

Content

• Theory of exchange rate determination
• Understanding balance of payments
• Taxonomy and history of exchange rate regimes
• Macroeconomics of open economies: Dornbusch’s overshooting model; New Keynesian macroeconomic model
• Rules versus discretion: theoretical foundations of monetary policy
• Central bank independence (de jure and de facto)
• Theories of currency crisis
• Current issues of monetary policy

Learning goals

• Students are able to explain the various determinants of exchange rates, and how foreign exchange markets interact with other markets in a macroeconomic model.
• They can apply their macroeconomic knowledge to real situations, and assess monetary policy responses to demand and supply changes.
• Students are able to describe and to critically analyze the theoretical foundations of a pre-committed, time consistent monetary policy and central bank independence.
• They are able to explain how monetary policy is affected by fiscal policies as well as by institutional settings (e.g. exchange rate regimes).
• Students understand the different mechanisms how a currency crisis might occur.
• Students are able to make informed contributions to current debates about macroeconomic development and monetary and fiscal policies.

Documents/Materials

All materials you find in the corresponding Moodle room.

Organization

• Takes place every year during the summer term
• ECTS credits: 6 LP.