1. Purpose

Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.

( Traveller, there is no path,
the path is made by walking. )

– Antonio Machado, 1875-1939

Ask yourself this question: Why am I in this program, doing this course?

If your answer is something like

”... [j]ust to get a higher qualification to advance my career”

then you might want to reconsider this course.

If your answer is something like

“I want to go beyond verbal narratives of economics, to think more precisely and quantitatively about economics, and to learn new methods to be able to understand or do research, ..., to challenge myself”

then this is your kind of course (and program).


  • This is a first graduate course on understanding and doing macroeconomic modelling. By modelling, we will generally mean modelling dynamic macroeconomic processes from the point of view of economic theory.
    • This is NOT a course on Empirical Macroeconomics, nor is it a course on Macroeconomic Policy although we will motivate most of our models with reference to the data and policy issues.
    • We will have little time to motivate these issues again, in this course. Nevertheless, you should consult any undergraduate textbook to remind yourself of these important questions, e.g., Charles Jones’ [Jo2013].

  • Why the focus here on theory and on related modelling methods?

    • The advanced research student (Honours, Ph.D) and the Masters student will need such skills to be able to read frontier research in the field.
    • More generally, the skills learned here will equip you to work in economic policy research, to work with, or, to communicate with policy researchers who will be using such modern modelling methods.

    This course leads on to even more sophisticated skillsets—e.g., for dealing with questions of dynamic redistribution in heterogeneous agent models—taught in ECON8001 Topics in Macroeconomics.

1.1. Expectations

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  • You will be self-motivated to learn, to think, and to get your hands dirty in this course.
  • You will work consistently in this course throughout the semester.
  • Your will take ownership and responsibility for your own study/work/life balance.
  • You will be responsible for mastering basic technical concepts required in this course, such as:
    • elementary and linear algebra
    • mathematical analysis at the level of a first mathematics course at university or an undergraduate mathematical economics course
    • series, functions
    • calculus, integration
    • basic probability and statistics
    • basic understanding of the logic of mathematical proofs
  • You will be intellectually open to new challenges; this includes attempting to solve partially unfamiliar problems, and, learning to write some Python code.

Note

This online material is only a summary on key concepts with some exercises. You still need to SHOW UP to classes and lab sessions, READ, MAKE your own notes, and DO the problems before class. There is no cheat’s sheet for mastering the material in this course.

Keep up to date on course progression and news on the: ANU Wattle Learning Management System.

References

[Jo2013]Charles I. Jones (2013): Macroeconomics (3rd Edition), W. W. Norton & Company.