Learning to do: Facilitating practice in a large introductory macroeconomics class

Contemporary pedagogy encourages instructors to move away from memorization to teaching the ability to “do economics.” In such an environment, students are taught to apply knowledge of economic measurement, the economic model, and economic policy to analyze current events and policies. In this article, the authors build on existing literature describing independent activities by sharing a set of class exercises and assignments that comprise an entire course. The course discussed in this article is a large enrollment introductory course and presents a novel approach to active learning, adapted to this often-challenging context. The course emphasizes engaging students by encouraging them to practice using macroeconomic tools.     

Macroeconomic effects of increased wage flexibility in EMU

We analyse the macroeconomic effects of a more flexible wage setting process in the euro area. Reducing wage rigidities leads to far greater volatility in nominal wages, which ultimately translates into somewhat higher output and consumption volatility, while employment volatility is hardly affected. Even though volatility increases, the persistence of shocks is significantly reduced, which improves welfare of the union as a whole. We can show in a counterfactual analysis that, with lower wage rigidities, real GDP in the rest of the euro area would be higher and the unemployment rate lower compared to recent levels.     

Financial integration, information and communication technology, and macroeconomic volatility: Evidence from ten Asian economies

This paper aims to examine the impact of financial integration and information and communication technology (ICT) development on output volatility. It applies a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model, in which ICT is assumed to increase the volume and speed of capital flows. This model predicts that economies with a high ICT development or/and a high degree of financial integration exhibit greater output fluctuations in the face of monetary policy shocks, but lower output fluctuations in the face of fiscal policy shocks. The empirical findings estimated by using the panel vector autoregression approach and impulse response analysis support these predictions.     

不良贷款与宏观经济的灰色关联分析

本文通过研究影响不良贷款变化的主要宏观经济因素及各因素的影响机理,建立了基于灰色理论的不良贷款影响因素分析模型,对影响淮南市不良贷款的各宏观因素进行实证分析。从而得出影响淮南市不良贷款变化的各因素的相对重要性,并提出相应的降低商业银行不良贷款余额的建议。     

Effects of European integration on Austria’s economy

High expectations were placed on the project of European economic integration and Austria’s participation in it. Economists had expected that the Single Market would provide a positive supply shock, i.e. rising productivity, resulting in more growth. The optimistic forecasts for neither the EU nor for Austria were borne out by actual economic trends. Economic growth as well as productivity growth decelerated, while unemployment increased. Monetary union was implemented with an economic policy framework, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) that geared monetary policy only to price stability and at the same time prescribed restrictive fiscal policies. The SGP therefore reveals a deflationary bias. The existing literature on the effects of EU accession on the Austrian economy by design fails to account for the restrictive effects of the SGP. The paper presents simulation results allowing for supply shocks as well as demand shocks. The simulations are based on a medium‐sized macroeconometric model. The results indicate that recent studies overestimate the positive effects of European integration. A simulation of the restrictive demand‐side effects of the SGP, with the assumption that around half of the fall in public consumption growth in the Euro countries can be attributed to the SGP, produced significant negative growth effects. The net effect suggests a negative quarter percentage point p.a. during the period 1995–2004.     

利用IS-LM模型对我国宏观经济的实证分析

改革开放以来我国的经济增长取得了举世瞩目的成就,本文通过IS-LM模型分析,建立联立方程,对我国经济1980年-2000年的历史数据,采用二阶段最小二乘法,进行回归分析,解出各经济变量与GDP之间的定量关系,并对回归结果进行分析和历史数据模拟,最后根据回归结果提出相应的建议.     

Political budget cycles,incumbency advantage,and propaganda

This paper combines incumbency advantage and political budget cycle theory. An opportunistic politician is given two instruments: deficit‐financed transfers and propaganda. Unlike earlier analytical models, but in accordance with the empirical literature, government manipulations do actually improve re‐election chances. However, the optimal level of government manipulation depends on country characteristics, in particular the competence dispersion among potential candidates. This may explain why it is easier to detect political budget cycles in, for instance, developing countries or new democracies. Results are robust to alternative competence distribution and propaganda cost assumptions.     

Integrating graphing assignments into a money and banking course using FRED

Over the course of one semester, six empirical assignments that utilize FRED are used to introduce students of money and banking courses to the economic analysis required for the conduct of monetary policy. The first five assignments cover the following topics: inflation, bonds and stocks, monetary aggregates, the Taylor rule, and employment. Students learn to gather and analyze data using the concepts and theories covered during lectures. The sixth homework is a short paper in which students synthesize the data from the previous assignments to make a policy recommendation for the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The overarching purpose of this exercise is to prepare students for the College Fed Challenge, and, more generally, to introduce them to economic data and policy analysis.     

Estimates of the macroeconomic costs of cyber‐attacks

This paper estimates the macroeconomic losses related to the cyber‐attacks originating from the information and communications technology (ICT) and the financial sectors. The study accounts for the interdependency of various economic sectors and looks to the cascading effect of cyber‐attacks on production network in the United States and leading Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries with the help of the input–output methodology and the World Input–Output Database. Our results suggest that cyber‐attacks that affect the ICT and finance sectors result in losses which also impact different economic sectors, due to cascading effects.