6000

The fundamental objective of modern macroeconomics is to provide quantitative responses to economic questions. The decisions of the different agents involved in an economy (families, firms, unions, countries, governments, central banks) are derived from uncertainty conditions and affect the future. The first part of the course studies theories of unemployment, natural unemployment rate, dilemma between inflation and economic activity, inflation and deflation costs, target inflation schemes, currency rules, Central Bank delegation and reputation, and some topics of interest in the current economic situation, such as deflation and liquidity trap, currency and globalization policy, optimum accumulation of international reserves and costs, and benefits of currency and dollarization. The second part of the course is aimed at studying the basic elements of dynamic macroeconomics. The fundamental objective is to help students understand the theory and numeric methods needed to write simple computer programs (MATLAB) and use them in the solution of quantitative questions in macro, public finances, currency, growth, work market, etc., all within a general dynamic balance framework. We will follow the path established by the 1985 Economy Nobel Robert Lucas: " One of the theoretical economy functions is to provide people with artificial economic systems that may be used as labs, where the different policies - that would otherwise be very expensive to evaluate in the real world – could be tested at a very low cost " (Lucas, 1980, p. 696).

This course approaches macroeconomics topics important to understand the long term, focusing on micro-based models of inter-temporal choices. The course presents both the basic theoretical elements and the related empirical evidence. It is divided into two sections. The first one analyzes the recent and most relevant contributions to the economic growth theory and studies the neoclassical growth model and the first endogenous growth models. The last part of the course is devoted to presenting some recent breakthroughs in the long-term economic growth theory focused on subjects as income distribution, human capital formation, demographic transition and industrial revolution.

This course has two main objectives. The first one is to review the basic mathematical statistics elements and the second one is to discuss statistical inference problems and methods, as presented in econometrics. The pre-requisites of this course include probability and statistics at undergraduate level, and linear calculus and algebra at a level equivalent to that covered in the mathematical methods course of the first year of the doctoral program.  Some topics corresponding to the mathematical statistics part include: probability theory, random variables, joint distributions, expectations, special distributions and convergence concepts and limit theorems. Subjects corresponding to statistics inference include estimation and hypothesis tests.

The course is intended to introduce the students to the cutting-edge econometric techniques for microeconomic and macroeconomic data management. The first section of the course focuses on the study of econometric methods for micro data, and refers to its application to the areas of labor economics, industrial organization, household and health economics, and economic development. The second section of the course deals with the econometric methods for time series used in microeconomic applied research and raises the kind of questions that macroeconomics may help to respond, as well as the appropriate techniques, specific problems of this type of data and the solutions proposed to solve these problems.

Research seminar that seeks to contribute to the doctoral student education process as researcher by formulating and developing research projects in the area of study selected, with the ultimate purpose of conducting the doctoral thesis. The sequence of the ECON-6401 and ECON-6402 research seminars during the second year of doctoral studies must end with the preparation of a first academic article and its presentation in a public seminar of CEDE at the end of such year. This research work is expected to be part of the doctoral thesis.

The research seminar intends to contribute to the Doctorate student’s education process as researcher through the statement and development of research projects in the chosen concentration area and its ultimate goal is the preparation of the doctoral thesis. The sequence of the research seminars ECON-6401 and ECON-6402, during the second year of doctoral studies, must conclude by preparing an academic paper to be presented in a CEDE public seminar at the end of that same year. Such research study is expected to be included in the doctoral thesis.