Economics 403: Advanced Topics in Macroeconomics

Prof. Brian Krauth, Fall 2002

Announcements:

• 11/19/02: Here is the second midterm.
• 10/24/02: Roadmap for the rest of the term:
  • For Tuesday, 10/29:
    Putnam, Robert D. “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life” in the March 1993 American Prospect.
    Putnam: “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital”.
    Kawachi, Ichiro: “Long Live Community: Social Capital As Public Health” in the November-December 1997 American Prospect.
    
  • For Thursday, 10/31: Portes, Alejandro: Social Capital: Its Origins and Application in Modern Sociology in the 1998 Annual Review of Sociology.
    
  • For Tuesday, 11/5:
    Knack and Keefer “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation” in the November 1997 Quarterly Journal of Economics.
    Glaeser, Edward et al.: “Measuring Trust” in the August 2000 Quarterly Journal of Economics.
    Glaeser, et al. The Economic Approach to Social Capital NBER Working Paper 7728, June 2000.
  • You should select a paper topic by Friday, November 8.
  • For Thursday, 11/7: Chapter 1 in Blinder, Alan S.: Central Banking in Theory and Practice.
  • For Tuesday 11/12: Chapter 2 in Blinder
  • For Thursday 11/14:Chapter 3 in Blinder.
  • The second midterm is Tuesday 11/19.
  • On Thursday 11/21 I will ask each student to give a brief (10 minute) presentation on his paper.
  • A first draft of the paper is due at noon on Monday 11/25.
  • Classes will not meet the last week. Instead, each student is required to make an appointment with me to discuss their draft and ways that it can be improved in the final version.
  • The final draft is due Friday 12/13 at noon.
    
• 10/23/02: Here is the midterm.
• 10/8/02: The midterm will be Tuesday, 10/22.
• 10/8/02: Readings for next week. Both are available online through the SFU library.
  • For Tuesday 10/15: Becker, Gary S. "A Theory of Marriage, Part I" in the July 1973 Journal of Political Economy
  • For Thursday 10/17: Kremer, Michael. "How much does sorting increase inequality?" in the February 1997 Quarterly Journal of Economics.
• 10/1/02: Readings for next week
  • For Tuesday 10/8: Chapter 4 in Schelling
  • For Thursday 10/10: Chapter 5 in Schelling
• 9/24/02: Readings for next week:
  • For Tuesday 10/1: Individual readings
    Becker, Gary S. and Kevin M. Murphy. Social Economics, Chapter 2
    Moffitt, Robert A. "Policy interventions, low-level equilibria, and social interactions" in Durlauf and Young, eds. Social Dynamics.
    Durlauf, Steven N. "The memberships theory of inequality" at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2014.pdf
    
• 9/17/02: Readings for next week:
  • For Tuesday 9/24: Read Manski, Charles F. "Economic Analysis of Social Interactions," in the Summer 2000 Journal of Economic Perspectives.
  • For Thursday 9/26: Individual readings
    Sacerdote, Bruce. "Peer effects with random assignment: Results for Dartmouth roommates," in May 2001 Quarterly Journal of Economics.
    Katz, Kling, and Liebman. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston", May 2001 Quarterly Journal of Economics.
    Crane, Jonathan. "The epidemic theory of ghettos and neighborhood effects on dropping out and teenage pregnancy," 1991 American Journal of Sociology, p. 1226-1259.
    
• 9/3/02: Readings for this week and next:
  • For Thursday 9/5/02: read pages 11-24 of Thomas Schelling's book Micromotives and Macrobehavior.
  • For Tuesday 9/10/02: read pages 24-43 and 83-102 in Schelling.
  • For Thursday 9/12/02: read pages 103-133 in Schelling.