Course Overview
Macroeconomics asks how societies grow, why they falter, and how policy interacts with human behavior at scale. This course teaches students to analyze output, unemployment, inflation, and growth—and to connect those models to what they see in headlines and data releases.
The course is discussion-driven and empirically grounded. Students track real-time economic data throughout the semester, learning to interpret employment reports, inflation announcements, and GDP releases as they happen. They complete problem sets, take exams, and draft an op-ed project translating technical analysis into public argument. No laptops in class—just notebooks, conversation, and deliberate engagement with the material.
The architecture moves from measurement to models to policy: four weeks establishing how we measure the economy (GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates), three weeks on long-run growth and the Solow model, four weeks developing the AS–AD framework for business cycles, then six weeks on monetary and fiscal policy. By the end, students can read Fed statements, evaluate policy trade-offs, and recognize when economic concepts are misused.
The course uses Cowen and Tabarrok’s Modern Principles but emphasizes data fluency and clear communication over textbook memorization. Students leave having grown in their ability to think like economists: systematically, skeptically, and with attention to trade-offs others miss.
Course Structure
| Class | Topics | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | Economic Thinking and Market Fundamentals | 1–4 |
| 5–10 | Measuring the Macroeconomy | 6, 9, 11–12 |
| 11–13 | Long-Run Growth and the Solow Model | 7–8 |
| 14–15 | Midterm and Review | — |
| 16–19 | Business Fluctuations: AS–AD Model | 13–14 |
| 20–27 | Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy, and Coordination | 15–18 |