Career Development and Lifestyle Planning



|[pic] |The Firm and the Macro-economy |

| |2 credit hours |

| | |

| |BU 220.610.XX (please include section number) |

| |(Note: each section must have a separate syllabus.) |

| |Class Day/Time & Start/End date |

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| |Semester |

| |Class Location |

Instructor

Full Name

Contact Information

Phone Number: (###) ###-####

E-mail Address:

Office Hours

Day/s Times (Please list available office hours at the center before/after class OR times available by phone. By appointment is not sufficient).

Required Text and Learning Materials

N. Gregory Mankiw, Macroeconomics (8th Edition), 2012, Worth Publishers. ISBN for package containing textbook and workbook, the latter at no additional charge, is 1464119848 9781464119842 MACROECON 8E&SG Macroeconomics & Study Guide, Eighth Edition MANKIW, N. GREGORY

The 8th edition is a new edition of the textbook and includes some material not in the 7th edition. If you are trying to save money by buying a used copy or an older version of the textbook, note that of the material covered in the course, the major changes include a) chapter 4 in the 8th edition is not in previous editions; b) the numbering of all chapters between the 7th and 8th edition is therefore changed, starting with chapter 4. For example, chapter 4 in the 7th edition is now chapter 5 in the 8th edition; c) chapter 20 on the financial crisis was not included in the 7th edition but will be covered in this course.

Please note: there is a Study Guide and Workbook (by Roger Kaufman) for this textbook that provides a large number of questions and problems (with answers) on the topics covered in the textbook. It is strongly recommend that you use the study guide/ workbook each week, in addition to reading the textbook. The workbook is especially useful if you have not had any economics courses prior to this course and/or feel that your quantitative or analytic skills are not as strong as you would like. The workbook is a very good investment of your time if you are diligent in using it. The study guide/textbook is free if purchased along with the textbook. Otherwise, it costs about $45.00. There is also a helpful Web site to accompany the book at mankiw. This site has activities for the more challenging concepts, as well as self-quizzing to help you prepare for exams.

Blackboard Site

A Blackboard course site is set up for this course. Each student is expected to check the site throughout the semester as Blackboard will be the primary venue for outside classroom communications between the instructors and the students. Students can access the course site at . Support for Blackboard is available at 1-866-669-6138.

Course Evaluation

As a research and learning community, the Carey Business School is committed to continuous improvement. The faculty strongly encourages students to provide complete and honest feedback for this course. Please take this activity seriously because we depend on your feedback to help us improve so you and your colleagues will benefit. Information on how to complete the evaluation will be provided towards the end of the course.

Disability Services

Johns Hopkins University and the Carey Business School are committed to making all academic programs, support services, and facilities accessible. To determine eligibility for accommodations, please contact the Carey Disability Services Office at time of admission and allow at least four weeks prior to the beginning of the first class meeting. Students should contact Rachel Pickett in the Disability Services office by phone at 410-234-9243, by fax at 443-529-1552, or email: carey.disability@jhu.edu.

Important Academic Policies and Services

• Honor Code

• Statement of Diversity and Inclusion

• Student Success Center

• Inclement Weather Policy

Students are strongly encouraged to consult the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Student Handbook and Academic Catalog and the School website for detailed information regarding the above items.

Course Description

This course explores the workings of the macroeconomy. Although the course focuses primarily on the United States economy, the concepts and tools apply to any market economies around the world. Major topics include: the determinants of an economy’s output; the role of money in the long run and short run; the determinants of the price level; the role of interest rates and exchange rates in the US economy and in small, “open” economies; the causes and nature of the business cycle; the Keynesian model of the economy and how it differs from the classical theory of the economy; and the role of fiscal and monetary policy in stabilizing the economy and ensuring full employment. The last lecture of the course studies the recent meltdown of the economy, stemming from the collapse of housing prices.

Prerequisite(s): None

Course Overview

This course is one of the foundation courses for the MBA curriculum. It provides a general understanding of the macroeconomic forces that play such a huge role in the formulation and implementation of corporate and business strategy. Any business manager who hopes to run a successful company must understand the forces that shape the economy in which he operates.

This course should be exciting for you: In the past few years, the economy has seen a major recession, with household wealth dropping by tens of trillions of dollars. House prices fell by about 35 percent from their peak in 2006. Nearly 20 percent of homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth and millions lost their homes to foreclosures. Hundreds of US banks failed and hundreds more were close to be insolvent because of their investments in the housing and mortgage markets. As a result, households and small business found it hard to get bank credit. Moreover, even those households who had access to loans cut back on borrowing to rebuild their net worth lost during the downturn. As a result, the pace of recovery has been extremely slow.

The past few years have also witnessed the near-default of some European governments and banks, creating strong tensions inside the Euro are that have threatened the Euro survival. The sorry state of European countries has implications for the US recovery.

Another unique aspect of the economy during the past few years has been the challenge of using fiscal policy to aid in the recovery. Congress nearly caused a default in US Treasury bonds in the summer of 2011 by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, an event that was avoided by postponing to the end of 2012 a promised deficit-cutting agreement. That deadline came and passed without a final deal on how to reduce the US deficit (even though the “fiscal cliff” was not crossed). The irony is that at the very time the economy could benefit from some fiscal stimulus, which would almost certainly raise the deficit, the Congress has insisted that fiscal policy be deficit-reducing.

With a constrained fiscal policy, the economic recovery has depended heavily on monetary policy. Early on in the recession, the Federal Reserve reduced the short-term interest rate to zero. Because the rate cannot go any lower than that, the FED has been using “unconventional” monetary policy (increasing the monetary base and buying long-term Treasury and mortgage bonds) to stimulate the economy. The Fed has now tapered the rate at which it buys long-term Treasury and mortgage bonds, and the focus of the debate has shifted on when and how the Fed will normalize the course of its policy stance.

The course aims at providing tools to make sense of these key events. The material is not easily accessible and requires diligence and work. Students typically find it hard and those who succeed typically spread their effort on the entire teaching period so as to assimilate gradually new concepts and methods. It is very important to keep up with the lectures and the reading. Each lecture and chapter builds on the previous lecture and chapter of the textbook so, to understand the later material, you must first master the earlier material. Reading the economics section of the newspapers, particularly articles on the macroeconomy, will help you appreciate the relevance of the course material to current events.

Student Learning Objectives for This Course

All Carey graduates are expected to demonstrate competence on four Learning Goals, operationalized in eight Learning Objectives. These learning goals and objectives are supported by the courses Carey offers. For a complete list of Carey learning goals and objectives, please refer to the website .

After successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Explain the determination of output in the long and short run.

• Describe the role of money and interest rates in determining prices and output.

• Explain the causes and consequences of inflation.

• Explain the theories behind the determination of exchange rates.

• Describe the characteristics of business cycles, and discuss government policies to influence the cycle.

• Understand the workings of fiscal and monetary policy and the way such policies can be used to moderate the business cycle.

• Discuss the most recent recession and the successes and failures of government policy to contain the decline in output.

Attendance and Participation Policy

Attendance is mandatory. If you expect to miss any lecture, let me know prior to or at the first class. The material is difficult, particularly if you have never had a course in macroeconomics. Prior experience strongly suggests that missing class precludes you from mastering the material and has a non-negligible adverse impact on your grade.

Participation in class is strongly encouraged. Asking and answering questions is welcomed. No one expects you to be an expert in the subject matter before you talk in class. Being able and willing to argue your point of view – even if you are wrong – helps in mastering the material.

Homework, Quizzes, and Exams

There will be weekly homework assignments, listed in blackboard, corresponding to lectures 1 through 6. (No assignment will be made after lecture 7). The homework will not be turned in or graded but is intended to give you a good indication of what you are expected to know and how well you are mastering the material. If you find that you have difficulty with the homework problems after studying the chapter and the lecture notes, you should take that as a sign that you need to put more time into the course. The answers to the homework problems will be provided in Blackboard, but ONLY the following week in order that you put the effort into answering the homework problems yourself. You are free to work with other students on the homework assignments and you are encouraged to do so.

There will be weekly graded quizzes at the start of the class. Questions will be multiple choice or short answers. The frequency of the quizzes is designed to ensure that you keep up with the material. The answers to the quizzes will be posted in Blackboard but the quizzes will not be returned. A comprehensive final exam will be given in week 8.

All students are expected to view the Carey Business School Honor Code/Code of Conduct tutorial and submit their pledge online.  Students who fail to complete and submit the pledge will have a registrar’s hold on their account.   Please contact the student services office via email carey.students@jhu.edu if you have any questions.

Students are not allowed to use any electronic devices during in-class tests. Calculators will be provided if the instructor requires them for test taking. Students must seek permission from the instructor to leave the classroom during an in-class test. Test scripts must not be removed from the classroom during the test.

Evaluation and Grading*

Your grade has the following components:

Quizzes in weeks 2, 4, 6, and 7 (5 minutes each and covering only the material in the immediately prior lecture): each worth 5% of total grade.

Quiz in week 3 (20 minutes and covering material from weeks 1 and 2) 15%

Quiz in week 5 (20 minutes and covering material from weeks 3 and 4) 15%

Comprehensive Final Exam, week 8 50%

TOTAL 100%

You may miss NO MORE than one quiz.. No makeups will be given for a missed quiz. If you are absent and therefore miss the quiz, the weight assigned to that quiz will be added to your final exam score. For example, if you miss the quiz in week 4, the weight on your final exam will be 55% rather than 50%. You cannot miss the final exam and there is no makeup for the final exam; it must be taken at the time scheduled.

Important notes about grading policy:

The grade of A is reserved for those who demonstrate extraordinarily excellent performance. The grade of A- is awarded only for excellent performance. The grade for good performance in this course is a B+/B. The grades of D+, D, and D- are not awarded at the graduate level.

Please refer to the Carey Business School Student Handbook for grade appeal information .

Please note: The course grade is based solely on your performance in this course. For example, the reimbursement policy of your employer has absolutely no bearing on the grade you receive.

Reading the material prior to class

It is essential that you read all the material assigned for each lecture PRIOR to that lecture. Obviously, you are not expected to understand all the material in the textbook prior to the lecture; however, if you do not make a good faith effort to read the textbook prior to the lecture, you will likely find that you cannot keep up with everything covered in the lecture. The lecture will not cover every point made in the textbook but will cover the most important points. However, unless noted otherwise, you should read the entire chapter.

Tentative Topics and Class Schedule

Textbook readings may be supplemented by selected articles from other publications and Internet resources. The following is a tentative plan, and the instructor reserves the right to alter course content or adjust the pace to accommodate class progress throughout the term. The scheduling of the quizzes may also be modified. Changes to this schedule will be posted in Blackboard and announced in class.

Pre-course readings: Chapters 1 and 2 of Mankiw should be read prior to the first lecture. If you cannot read these chapters for the first class, it is important that you do so for the second class. Anyone who has had a course in macro or micro (or other science or social science disciplines) will already understand what is meant by a “model” and endogenous and exogenous variables and thus can read and digest chapter 1 very quickly. Chapter 2 will also be familiar to most students in this program, although some of the details may not be. Parts of chapter 2 will be reviewed in the first lecture but the time devoted to that review will be limited. You are not responsible for the following sections of chapter 2 and thus may omit reading them: “Chain-Weighted Measure of Real GDP;” “Other Measures of Income;” and “Seasonal Adjustment.”

|Week |Assignment/assessm| |Chapters in Textbook to be covered in |

| |ent |Topics/Themes of lecture |lecture |

| |Homework on |A brief review of the global financial crisis and its aftermath. |Articles from The Economist magazine |

|1 |chapter 3 given |How the economy works in the long run: what determines the amount of output | |

| |out |and the distribution of income between wages and profits. What is the role |Chapter 3 |

| | |of the interest rate. | |

| | |Also, brief review of parts of chapter 2 (GDP, CPI, unemployment rate) | |

| |Homework on |How the amount of money is determined by the central bank and the |Chapter 4 and chapter 5 (excluding |

|2 |chapters 4 and 5 |banks/public. The link between money and prices/inflation in the long run – |appendix to chapter 5) |

| |given out |the “quantity theory of money”; costs of inflation; nominal and real interest | |

| | |rates. | |

| |Homework on |The Open Economy; the real and nominal exchange rates. |Chapter 6 (excluding appendix to |

|3 |chapter 6 given | |chapter 6) |

| |out | | |

| |Homework on |Why the unemployment rate is not zero even when the economy is booming |Chapters 7 and 10 |

|4 |chapters 7 and 10 |The business cycle; long-run and short-run aggregate supply curves; the | |

| |given out |aggregate demand curve; shocks to supply and demand; stabilization policy | |

| |Homework on |Aggregate Demand: the Keynesian IS-LM model describing the determination of |Chapter 11 and 12 |

|5 |chapter 11 given |the level of output in the short run | |

| |out | | |

| |Homework on |More on the Keynesian model; fiscal and monetary policy. |Chapter 12 and 20 |

|6 |chapter 12 given | | |

| |out | | |

| | |The Financial Crisis of the past few years |Chapter 20 |

|7 | |Review: In addition to the instructor’s review, students should bring any | |

| | |lingering questions to class that they want answered prior to the final exam. | |

|8 |Review and Final |Exam will take between 1 ½ to 2 hours. | |

| |Exam | | |

Copyright Statement

Unless explicitly allowed by the instructor, course materials, class discussions, and examinations are created for and expected to be used by class participants only.  The recording and rebroadcasting of such material, by any means, is forbidden.  Violations are subject to sanctions under the Honor Code.

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