Overview
This online elective course is designed to introduce macroeconomic theories and concepts to gain insights into how the economy works, the interdependence of economies around the world, and causes and consequences of current and historical global economic events. It will teach how to analyze the working of aggregate markets (goods, labour, and financial markets) and their outcomes in terms of important macroeconomic variables, such as income, consumption, investment, employment, and inflation. It will also introduce analyses of changes in those markets in the short and medium runs, with the aim of providing an understanding of business cycle fluctuations, economic calamities (such as currency, banking, and debt crises), and effects of fiscal and monetary policies on employment, output, the rate of inflation, and national welfare.
From a business management perspective, the approach in this course will be to first take a careful look at the economic reality and then learn the relevant theories to find explanations. At the same time, learning to apply the abstract theories to analyze and explain hypothetical scenarios will also be important. The course is expected to make business executives better equipped for critical decision making with a sound understanding of current macroeconomic events and an ability to predict future events.
Objectives
Students will develop an understanding of:
- alternative ways of measuring an economy’s aggregate volume of production
- analyses of goods, labour, and financial markets, and how the economy works when these markets are put together
- inflation and its relationship with aggregate employment, money supply, and the rate of interest
- the role of peoples’ expectations (and possible biases) in the determination of consumption, investment, and financial market outcomes, including bubbles and fads
- analyses of the goods and financial markets in an open-economy setting and their relationship with the exchange rate
- depressions and slumps, and currency, banking, and debt crises
- stabilizing the economy with fiscal and monetary policies.
Evaluation
The grade for this course is based on two group projects, one individual assignment, and contributions to online discussions.