ISL 244E - Macroeconomics

Course Objectives

to introduce students to basic macroeconomic variables, models and analyses

Course Description

This course is designed as a follow-up to the Microeconomics course, which introduced the supply and demand model for the study of single product markets, and models of economic decision-making by consumers and firms/businesses. This course will follow up on these micro-foundations to explore the other major field of economics: Macroeconomics. Macroeconomics focuses on aggregate economic phenomena such as national income, growth, unemployment, inflation, interest rate, savings, investment, productivity and economic fluctuations. We look at how these macro variables are defined and measured; identify their observed trends in time-series and cross-section data; explore their causes and effects. The lectures will develop an analytical framework showing how these macroeconomic variables relate to one another and their relevance to macroeconomic policymaking. The latter half of the course will focus on the implications of an open economy context for these macroeconomic phenomena, by exploring international trade, capital flows, exchange rates, the balance of payments, and economic fluctuations in a globalized economy. The relationship between economic growth, human development, social and environmental sustainability is a cross-cutting theme throughout the course.