Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

The principal elements of theory concerning money and income, distribution, social accounts, public finance, international trade, comparative systems, and development and growth. Students with credit for ECON 205 cannot take ECON 105 for further credit. Quantitative/Breadth-Soc.

COURSE DETAILS:

Economics is a special way of looking at human behaviour. Traditionally, it is divided into two big chunks, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. While Microeconomics studies the behaviour of individuals and concrete markets, Macroeconomics studies how the economy behaves as a whole. Two big ideas drive these studies. One is that the economy is a self-regulating system, and so we study how it arrives at the outcomes that we observe. The other one is that we can influence those outcomes, and so we study how it could be done, i.e., Macroeconomics is very policy oriented. Some big questions that the macroeconomists ask include: What determines the level of the national output or income? Why is there unemployment? What causes inflation? How does international trade influence standards of living? Why do some countries become very rich over time while others struggle to achieve any economic growth? How can government policies help to mitigate the impacts of business cycles or stimulate economic growth? We will tackle these and many other questions, using the simple macroeconomic models and carefully considering their applications to everyday events.

Topics:

• Economics Methodology & Models
• Macroeconomic Aggregates
• Short-Run Equilibrium Models
• Business Cycles & Stabilization Policies
• Long-Run Equilibrium Models
• Economic Growth & Policies
• Money, Banking, & Interest
• Canadian Monetary Policies

 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: