Course Overview

Intermediate Macroeconomics builds the analytical frameworks economists use to understand growth, fluctuations, and policy—then asks how these models hold up when confronted with data. The course moves systematically from measurement and accounting to consumption, investment, money, and labor markets, then develops dynamic models of business cycles and policy interaction (AS–AD, IS–LM, Mundell–Fleming).

Students work with Mankiw’s textbook but read the original papers alongside it—Lucas on business cycles, Friedman on the Phillips curve, Higgs on regime uncertainty, Radford on POW camp money, Alchian on unemployment and evolution. The goal is to understand both the technical machinery and where it simplifies reality.

The course emphasizes data fluency. Students track macroeconomic releases throughout the semester, build GDP from the bottom up, date business cycles across countries, and analyze regional labor markets using CPS microdata. Assessment includes problem sets, two exams, reading reflections, an ongoing data journal, and a final integrative project linking course frameworks to current policy debates. Students choose their own empirical terrain—micro data or macro aggregates.

By the end, students can construct the core models of modern macro, interpret data skeptically, evaluate policy with attention to distributional effects, and see where standard models mislead. The course teaches both technical mastery and healthy skepticism about what we claim to know.

Course Structure

Part I: Foundations of Macroeconomic Analysis

  • The Practice and Data of Macroeconomics
  • National Income and Production
  • Consumption and Saving Behavior
  • Investment and Expectations
  • Money and Inflation
  • Open Economy and Exchange Rates
  • Labor Markets and Unemployment

Part II: Fluctuations and Policy

  • Aggregate Demand and Supply Dynamics
  • Dynamic Models of Business Cycles
  • IS–LM and Policy Interaction
  • The Mundell–Fleming Model
  • Stabilization Policy and Public Debt
  • Heterogeneity in Macroeconomic Adjustment
  • Contemporary Macroeconomic Challenges

Course Materials

Textbook: Mankiw, Macroeconomics (12th Edition)

Other Papers: Available on Blackboard