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MACRO TOPICS (14.456) Nick Bloom Overview. COURSE OVERVIEW. There are four things I can teach: Content – i.e. papers, chapters from textbooks Techniques – i.e. estimators, dynamic programming Skills – i.e. presentations, writing papers etc Ideas – i.e. feedback on your research
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COURSE OVERVIEW • There are four things I can teach: • Content – i.e. papers, chapters from textbooks • Techniques – i.e. estimators, dynamic programming • Skills – i.e. presentations, writing papers etc • Ideas – i.e. feedback on your research • I want to focus much more on the last two as these are • much harder to self-teach – this will make this non-standard • as a graduate course • But this is flexible, so feedback is very useful
DRAFT SCHEDULE (1/4) • Classes cover topics in two parts: • First half – 1 core paper which we all read in advance. One person (nominated in advance) presents. Everyone else prepares a 5 slide discussion, focusing on: • Good stuff – what the paper did well • Bad stuff – what the paper didn’t do well • Extensions – what you could do extending this • Second half – I will summarize about 3 more related papers. You don’t need to read any of these in advance • So you only have to read 1 paper in advance – but please • read this in detail so we can discuss and deconstruct this
DRAFT SCHEDULE (2/4) • To pass the class you have to: • Present one paper in the term (to be allocated shortly) • Every class have a 5-slide discussion prepared for the class-paper • - Good stuff – what the paper did well • - Bad stuff – what the paper didn’t do well • - Extensions – what you could do extending this • Turn up, keep awake, and ask the occasional question
DATES SCHEDULE (3/4) Individual Session Dates: Tuesday 4th November and 4th December – no class Thursday 13th November – Presentations & job market Tuesday 25th November– “tips & trick” Finally, I will pay for a class dinner. We should do this about midway – nearer the time I’ll ask Jean-Paul to coordinate
DATES SCHEDULE (4/4) • Individual Topics to Cover Include • Reallocation • Adjustment costs and uncertainty • Micro to macro – partial equilibrium • Micro to macro – general equilibrium • Great moderation • Volatility & Growth • Uncertainty • IT and productivity • Innovation • Skill biased technical change Census data Aggregation, volatility and uncertainty Technology
OTHER ISSUES Office hours – just e-mail/ask me, I’m happy to meet up Slides – I’ll put all these up on my website after the lecture Breaks – we’ll have a 5 minute coffee break at about 1:45
Session 1: Adjustment Costs and Real Options Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes) “Investment and Employment Dynamics in the Short-Run and the Long-Run”, Avinash Dixit, OEP (1997)
Session 2: Aggregation in Partial Equilibrium Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes) “Irreversibility and Aggregate Investment”, Giuseppe Bertola and Ricardo Caballero, RESTUD (1994)
Session 3: Aggregation in General Equilibrium Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes) “Idiosyncratic shocks and the role of nonconvexities in plant and aggregate investment dynamics”, Aubhik Kahn and Julia Thomas, Econometrica (2008)
Session 4: The Great Moderation Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“Has the business cycle changed and why?” Stock and Watson (2002, NBER Macro Annual)
Session 5: Volatility and Growth Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“Volatility and Development” Koren and Tenreyro (2006, QJE)
Session 6: Uncertainty Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“Impact of uncertainty shocks” Bloom (2008, CE Econometrica)
Session 7: Innovation Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction”, Aghion and Tirole (Econometrica, 1992)
Session 8: IT and Productivity Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“Modeling the Transition to a New Economy: Lessons from Two Technological Revolutions”, Atkeson and Kehoe (AER, 2008)
Session 9: Skill Biased Technical Change Student presents (volunteer): (30 minutes)“Trends in US Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists”, Autor, Katz and Kearney (2008, RESTAT) Additional paper: “Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market”, Acemoglu (2002, JEL)