Elaborate Course:Money and Banking

精品课程：货币银行学

I. Course Introduction

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a set of topics in contemporary monetary economics. The primary approach of the course is to stress the theoretical micro-foundations behind money, by modeling the behavior of rational agents in a market setting. In the context of this theoretical framework, the course will examine topics such as why agents hold money, the quantity theory of money, the inefficiency of inflation, the effect of surprise inflation and the Lucas Critique, the effect of monetary policy on national debt, and commitment issues in the conduct of monetary policy, among others.

For the course I recommend several different readings, students are given excerpts from Dynamic Macro Theory by Sargent, Lecture from Carl Walsh and a collection of Journal Articles relating to Monetary Policy and Banking. I am currently writing a book that relates to the historical impact of the U.S. Federal Reserves System on the U.S. Monetary Policies. I often take excerpts from this book to give students a look at where Monetary Policy fits into a historical perspective. (Students often find this aspect of the class particularly engaging.)

As students’ interests grow, I often give them specialized readings. For example, if a student is particularly interested in the Phillip’s Curve. I’ll show them literature that is related to their country on the Phillip’s Curve and if there is little or no literature on that particular subject, I insist that the student use that as their thesis topic.

During the course we also look at the use of statistical packages. This portion of the course pushes students to look online to find data sources and statistical package help. Students are taught to use the R statistical and programming package. Students are given a variety of webpages that can assist them in utilizing and answering many of their own questions. This teaches the students to work independently as well as in a group setting without depending on the teacher to “feed” them answers.

II. Teaching Syllabus