Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Jeffrey Sheen
Contact via x7287
E4A 430
Thursdays 3-5pm
Lecturer
David Orsmond
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
ECON633
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
ECON713
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit provides the necessary tools to engage with current macroeconomic issues. It will apply rigorous economic analysis to real-world problems, developing an understanding about the relationships between key macroeconomic indicators e.g. inflation, output growth, unemployment, interest rates, wages and profits, stock market indices, exchange rates. The unit will help students to think creatively about the design and constraints of monetary, fiscal and macroprudential policy in normal times and during a crisis.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
No extensions on within-session assessments will be granted for all assessments listed below.
For Essay: There will be a deduction of 10% of the total available marks made from the total awarded mark for each 24 hour period or part thereof that the submission is late (for example, 25 hours late in submission – 20% penalty). This penalty does not apply for cases in which an application for special consideration is made and approved.
For Group Research & Presentation and Final Exam: students who have not submitted the task prior to the deadline or sit the exam will be awarded a mark of 0 for the task, except for cases in which a formal application for Special Consideration is made (via http://www.ask.mq.edu.au/) and approved.
If the application is successful, the missed assessment will be replaced by an supplementary test, which could involve an oral test.
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
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Group Research & Presentation | 25% | No | Weeks 9-12 |
Essay | 25% | No | Week 12 |
Final Examination | 50% | No | Week 13, in Class |
Due: Weeks 9-12
Weighting: 25%
Due: Week 12
Weighting: 25%
NB Possible topics will be provided in iLearn.
Due: Week 13, in Class
Weighting: 50%
The end-of-session exam will be closed-book, held in Week 13 in class. Details of the exam will be discussed in Week 12.
LECTURES/SEMINARS (refer to https://timetables.mq.edu.au for class time)
Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials
There is no required textbook for this course. It is assumed that you understand well an intermediate macroeconomics textbook (like Blanchard and Sheen Macroeconomics, 2013, Pearson 4th edn). Useful readings for the topics are given in the Unit Schedule.
Unit Web Page
You can access the ECON913/713 web site on iLearn from anywhere on the Internet. To login you need a Username and password. All lecture slides should be available on the iLearn site at least by midday of the lecture.
This a planned schedule, and there may be minor variations as the session progresses.
WEEKS 1-8
TOPIC 1 (JS) Monetary policy frameworks – inflation targeting, and alternatives
Debelle, G. 2018 Twenty-five Years of Inflation Targeting in Australia RBA Conference Central Bank Frameworks: Evolution or Revolution? 2018
Rogoff, K. 2017. Dealing with monetary paralysis at the zero bound. Journal of Economic Perspectives, https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogoff/files/dealing_with_monetary_paralysis_at_the_zero_bound.pdf
TOPIC 2 (JS) Forecasting and the RBA’s MARTIN Model
Cusbert, T. and Kendall, E. 2018. Meet MARTIN, the RBA's New Macroeconomic Model, RBA Bulletin March 2018 https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2018/mar/meet-martin-the-rbas-new-macroeconomic-model.html
TOPIC 3 (JS) Low inflation, the natural rate of unemployment, fiscal theory of prices
Cassidy, N., Rankin,E., Read, M. and Seibold,C. 2019 Explaining Low Inflation Using Models. https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/jun/explaining-low-inflation-using-models.html
Blanchard, O. 2018 Should we reject the natural rate hypothesis? Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol 32, 1 Winter 2018 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.32.1.97
Cochrane, J. 2019 The Fiscal Roots of Inflation, NBER Working Paper 25811, https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/decomposition.pdf
TOPIC 4 (JS) Digital money and the payments system; the future of cybercurrencies – eg Bitcoin, Libra
Cameron, D, Emery, D, Ma,J. and Noone, C. 2019 Cryptocurrency: Ten Years On. RBA Bulletin June 2019
Philip Lowe: RBA Governor Speech (2018) A Journey Towards a Near Cashless Payments System – Sydney https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2018/sp-gov-2018-11-26.html
TOPIC 5 (DO) The causes of financial crises and policy responses
Reinhard, C. and K. Rogoff (2008), This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, NBER Paper 13882, March https://www.nber.org/papers/w13882.pdf
RBA Explainer: The Global Financial Crisis, https://rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/pdf/the-global-financial-crisis.pdf
TOPIC 6 (DO) Financial regulation: Principles and practice
Yuksel M. (2019), ‘A decade of post-crisis G20 financial sector reforms,’ RBA Bulletin, June https://rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/jun/pdf/a-decade-of-post-crisis-g20-financial-sector-reforms.pdf
Orsmond D. and F. Price (2016), ‘Macroprudential policy frameworks and tools,’ RBA Bulletin, December https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2016/dec/pdf/rba-bulletin-2016-12-macroprudential-policy-frameworks-and-tools.pdf
TOPIC 7 (DO) China’s economic emergence: Past, present and future
Garnaut, R., L. Song and C. Fang (2018), Overview in 40 years of Chinese economic reform and development (Australian National University Press), http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n4267/pdf/ch02.pdf
Edwards, J. (2018), ‘Economic conflict between America and China,’ Lowy Institute WP, December, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Edwards_Economic%20conflict%20between%20America%20and%20China_WEB_0.pdf
TOPIC 8 (DO) Low global interest rates: Causes and policy responses
Simon, J. (2015), ‘Low interest rate environments and risks,’ Speech to the Paul Woolley Centre, https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2015/sp-so-2015-10-08.html
Summers, L. (2014), ‘Reflections on the new secular stagnation hypothesis’, VoxEU, October, https://voxeu.org/article/larry-summers-secular-stagnation
WEEK 9 Group Seminar: The RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2019 https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2019/aug/
WEEK 10 Group Seminar: IMF World Economic Outlook 2019 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO
WEEK 11 Group Seminar: BIS Annual Report https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2019e.htm
WEEK 12 Group Seminar: RBA Financial Stability Review https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2019/apr/ (or October, if released)
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