#ItsNotUCDItsTheGovernment

The students union at my university are staging a protest tomorrow against the university’s management. It being Valentine’s day, the campaign features a broken heart and a slogan #ItsNotMeItsUCD. Other tweets in the campaign complain about how UCD has become a “commercialised university”, use the hashtag #NotaBusiness and contain dark murmerings about “corporate interests”. The campaign wants action from UCD management on a number of issues.

UCD2

I fully understand student unhappiness with campus rents being high, with campus services not being better and various other ways in which UCD has sought to either raise income or reduce costs. I have no role in the management of the university and I don’t wish to defend the management for every decision they have taken but … I think this campaign completely misses the actual source of these problems which is the massive reduction in government funding provided to Irish universities.

The table below shows comparable estimates of income and expenditure by UCD comparing 2019 with 2009 (the last accounts published are for 2020 but that was a strange year for the university’s finances so I’ve used 2019 instead).  The figures come from here.

UCD1

A few items are worth highlighting.

  1. UCD is not a profit-making business. It has no shareholders or “corporate interests” to pay dividends to. The money the university earns gets spent on paying for staff and services and keeping the university operating. In other tables in the financial reports you can see that there is no large endowment of money to pay for things. The university generally keeps enough cash on hand to run the university for a few months but no more than that.
  2. Total state funding for UCD from fees and grants fell by €85 million between 2009 and 2019, even as the economy recovered and government coffers flowed over. The state took away about 20% of the cost of funding UCD during the recession and did not return this funding when the economy improved.
  3. Despite this, UCD increased spending over this period with most of the additional spending going on “other operating expenses”. Spending on student facilities increased from €3 million in 2009 to €4.8 million in 2019.
  4. The additional spending was possible because the university increased fees from other sources by €100 million and because they raised an additional €55 million from other sources. The largest part of the increase in fee income came from Irish undergraduates having to pay a €3000 fee (a policy introduced by the government to cover much of the cost of reduced state funding) but the university also raised a lot of additional fees from non-EU students. €19 million of the increase in other income came from rents from student residences.

The bottom line in terms of what happened to Irish universities over the last decade is that the Irish government effectively walked away from funding them properly and told the universities to go raise their own income to pay for the provision of third level education.

The SU want UCD to earn less income from rents and fees and to spend more on student services and staff salaries. I’d love all of that to happen but the reality is that, as things stand, this would open a huge gap between UCD’s income and expenditure and the funding to allow that is not there. The only way there can be a large increase in spending and a corresponding reduction in income is if UCD were to get back some of the state funding that was taken away.

There is a long tradition of student unions protesting against their own university and, in many cases, they pick good causes and help to improve the world. In this case, I’m afraid UCD SU have picked the right cause but the wrong target. Ironically, this protest comes at a time when there appears to be some debates within the Cabinet about providing better funding for the university sector. Those in government who don’t want to provide more money for universities or to cut fees will be relieved that tomorrow’s protest is focused at UCD’s management rather than the Department of Higher Education or the Department of Public Expenditure.

The reality is that in the absence of a serious change in state funding, there will be no improvements in the areas the SU cares about. And blaming UCD management won’t help them come up with a magic money tree that allows more spending with lower income.

Thoughts on Online Education

I see that many UK universities are announcing they are staying mainly online for 2021-22, with only small group teaching happening in person. I am not going to judge whether this is the right policy for the upcoming year because public health is not my area of expertise. However, Manchester University have announced that this is a permanent change and I suspect many others are considering this option.

Personally, I think making decisions now to permanently get rid of in-person lectures would be a mistake, both on the substance of the issue and on the timing and processes for making a decision of this sort. A few thoughts below.

Educational Substance

I have been teaching online since March 2020 and have worked hard at it. After a period recording lectures without anyone listening live, I settled on an approach of teaching online at the time of my scheduled timetabled slots and also recording the lecture. Despite my initial fears, I think this has worked reasonably well and feedback I received from students has generally been positive and kind.

The positive feedback for this format reflects both the live element and the recorded element. For some students, it is very important to be able to participate in their lectures in a structured timetabled way and also to be able to interact with a lecturer during a live session. My undergraduate classes have large class sizes and I will admit that I get more questions online – via the chat box – then I ever did when I taught live. Asking questions in front of many class mates is intimidating for most people but typing a question into a chat box is not – the question can also be sent just to the lecturer, giving the student complete privacy.

For other students, the access to recordings of the lectures is hugely positive. Students have told me it’s great that they can pause and rewind the lectures, particularly when they are covering something technical and how they can listen to lectures while they are on a walk, if it is less technical.

But there are important downsides to not having in-person lectures. In online lectures, students do not turn their cameras on and it is difficult to insist that they do. This means lecturers cannot see whether they are being understood. Manchester University have “pledged to continue in-person teaching for lectures with an “interactive” element, such as question and answer sessions.”  But all live teaching is interactive. When my students are in front of me, I can see how they are responding to what I am saying. I can see how many look a bit puzzled, I can tell if they are smiling at my bad jokes or if they are paying attention to a bit that I signal is very important. Chat box questions are fine but they are not a substitute for a lecturer’s ability to “read the room”.

Another important interaction that is lost is the ability to come up in person after class to talk to a lecturer. I run online office hours and have been pleased with the number of students that have used them. Indeed, I plan to retain this option when in-person classes return. But students are more likely to use the online hours to go over a number of issues on the course rather than the traditional quick exchange after class to clarify what we have just discussed or to perhaps ask about something related to their degree or something that is tangentially related to the course material.

Finally, it is important for students to be learning around other students and to have the time and space to talk about what they are learning after lectures. Universities can try to encourage online study groups but there is no good substitute for meeting the other people on your course and talking with them about how they are getting on.

For these reasons, I strongly hope that my university returns to in-person lectures as soon as it is safe to do so. Based on communications from our President, I fully expect this to happen.

Are there things that we have learned from teaching online? Yes. When I return to live teaching, I plan to record the lectures.  Currently, I’m thinking of teaching live both in-person and on Zoom using a laptop brought to lectures.  This would allow students to either attend in person or listen live at home or listen to a recording. Students that attend live could still use a chat box via phone or laptop to ask questions. This retains the advantages of online teaching while bringing back the benefits of live teaching.

Some lecturers will be uncomfortable with this approach because of the technology demands it places on them (I’m pretty good with tech but I don’t know if I can actually pull it off). Others will argue that learning in person is the “gold standard” and making lectures available online will reduce class attendance and damage educational standards.

I’m not so sure. My courses are popular but attendance at lectures has always been pretty spotty. Whether lecturers like it or not, students are not always in a position to attend every lecture, whether it be because they get sick, or have to work a part-time job to support themselves or perhaps have a long commute because housing costs in their university’s location are prohibitively expensive. Making recordings available would benefit these students but it can also benefit the students who actually attended class. When students are revising for exams or writing an assignment and think “what did the lecturer say about that in class again?” with recordings they can go back and listen.

I have also switched to having weekly online MCQ quizzes to replace an MCQ midterm exam and I have decided to keep this since it seemed to work better at keeping students engaged and the feedback I received from students was also positive.

So we have much to benefit from by using technology but that doesn’t mean we should scrap in-person lectures.

A Difficult Sell

You can see from the above that I am not wholly negative about online teaching and my experience is that for some students, the positive have actually outweighed the negatives. But universities need to understand that the majority of students want to at least have the option to attend lectures in person and that going into college to learn and meet other students is a crucial part of the university experience.

And as can seen from the initial response to Manchester’s announcement, students and their parents will respond to the removal of in-person lecturers with the demand to reduce fees: If you provide us with an inferior service, then we’re not willing to pay you as much.  This puts universities in a difficult situation because it is not cheaper to deliver online education than in-person teaching. You still need to pay the lecturers and they actually spend more time on things like recording lectures or designing new assessments that work online than they did in the past when you could just show up to teach in person and set an exam to be taken in an exam hall.  Expenditures on tech support and cloud storage also likely go up.

Longer term, there may be savings from having fewer staff and students on campus but for now those cost savings are likely to be small. Moreover, any move to downgrade the importance of in-person teaching in UK universities would be ironic since the additional income that came with the £9,000 annual fees and the race for high fees from international students had lead to a boom in capital spending on campuses as universities competed with each other on the basis of the quality of on-campus life as well as educational quality. De-emphasising the campus experience will be a very difficult sell.

Timing and Process

The issues around how to combine technologies and in-person teaching are complex and there are many lessons to take from our recent experiences. I have listed some above but I’m sure there are lots of aspects that I haven’t considered or that affect subjects that I don’t teach.

To my mind, now is not the time for universities to be taking decisions to permanently change their approach to teaching. Universities should instead instigate processes of consulting with staff and students about what they like and dislike about the online approach and then focus on how much of the good new stuff we can keep while retaining as much of the good old stuff as we can. Where trade-offs emerge, they should be carefully weighed up. If this process takes a few years, then so be it.

There is also a deeper issue. Students that have signed up for a degree based on in-person lectures should not be told in the middle of this degree that those lectures are being discontinued.  How many would have chosen to attend the university if they had known the experience was going to be radically different from what was advertised? Purely on the grounds of fairness and avoidance of reputational damage, I would recommend that any university considering this move should wait until the graduation of the final student cohort that was advertised a degree with in-person lectures.

MA Macroeconomics

This is the class website for University College Dublin module MA Macroeconomics (ECON 41990) in  Autumn 2014.

Information and Assessment

A syllabus for the course (including details of the assessment) is available here.  The School of Economic gradescale is here.

Here is a handout with guidelines on the final exam and sample questions for the first section of the exam.  (Final edition).

Here are sample questions for the second part of the final exam as well as some guidelines for answering the questions. (Final edition).

 Lecture Notes

1. The IS-LM Model. (From MIT Open Courseware)

2. The AS-AD Model. (From MIT Open Courseware)

My summary of IS-LM and AS-AD

Click on the name of the topics below to obtain the lecture notes. Note these are longer and more detailed than the slides.

3. Introducing the IS-MP-PC Model. Slides here.

4. Analysing the IS-MP-PC Model. Slides here.

5. The Taylor Principle. Slides here.

6. The Zero Lower Bound and the Liquidity TrapSlides here.

7. Rational Expectations and Asset Prices. Slides here.

8. Rational Expectations, Consumption and Asset Pricing. Slides here.

9. Sticky Prices and the Phillips Curve. Slides here.

10. Growth Accounting. Slides here.

11. The Solow Model. Slides here.

12. Endogenous Technological Change: The Romer Model.  Slides here.

13. Cross-Country Technology Diffusion.  Slides here.

14. Institutions and Efficiency.  Slides here.

Readings

John Hicks (1937). Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation

Mark Bils and Peter Klenow (2004). Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices

Alvarez et al (2005). Sticky Prices in the Euro Area

Carl Walsh (2002): Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

Milton Friedman (1968): The Role of Monetary Policy.

John Taylor (1993): Discretion Versus Policy Rules in Practice

Bank of England (2012): State of the Art of Inflation Targeting

Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali and Mark Gertler (2000): Monetary Policy Rules
and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory

Athanasios Orphanides (2001). Monetary Policy Rules, Macroeconomic Stability and Inflation: A View from the Trenches

Ben Bernanke (2003):  Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan

Lars Svensson (2003). Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation: The Foolproof Way and Others

Paul Krugman (2012): Earth to Ben Bernanke. Chairman Bernanke Should Listen to Professor Bernanke

Eugene Fama (1970): Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work

Eugene Fama (1991): Efficient Capital Markets II

Robert Shiller (1981): Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?

John Campbell and Robert Shiller (2001). Valuation Ratios and the Long-Run Stock Market Outlook: An Update.

Gavyn Davies: The Nobel  Laureates on Equity Bubbles

NBER Workshop on Behavioural Finance.

Robert Lucas (1976). Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique.

Robert Hall (1978). Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence.

John Campbell and Gregory Mankiw (1990). Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption

Robert Barro (1974). Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?

Jonathan Parker, Nicholas Souleles, David Johnson and Robert McClelland (2011). Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008.

Jonathan Parker (1999). The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes.

Chang-Tai Hsieh (2003). Do Consumers React to Anticipated Income Changes? Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund

Bureau of Labor Statistics MFP Trends up to 2013

Karl Whelan: Is the U.S. Set for an Era of Slow Growth?

Kieran McQuinn and Karl Whelan (2014): Presentation on Demographics, Structural Reform and the Growth Outlook for Europe.

Alwyn Young (1992): A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change in Hong Kong and Singapore

Edward Miguel and Gerard Roland (2009): The Long Run Impact of Bombing Vietnam

Paul Krugman (1994): The Myth of Asia’s Miracle

Paul Romer (1990) : Endogenous Technological Change.

Robert Gordon (2012): Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds

Robert Gordon (2014): The Demise of U.S. Growth: Restatement, Rebuttal and Reflections

Joel Mokyr (2013): Is Technological Progress a Thing of the Past?

Robert E. Hall and Charles I. Jones (1999). Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?

Douglass North (1999). Institutional Change: A Framework of Analysis.

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson (2001). The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.

Dani Rodrik, Arvind Subramanian, and Francesco Trebbi (2002). Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development.

Robert Gillanders and Karl Whelan (2014). Open For Business? Institutions, Business Environment and Economic Development.

MA Advanced Macroeconomics

This is the class website for University College Dublin module MA Advanced Macroeconomics (ECON41620) taught by Prof. Karl Whelan in the Spring term of 2016.

The focus in this course will be on the methods that modern macroeconomics uses to model and understand time series fluctuations in the major macroeconomic variables. The first part of the course focuses on Vector Autoregression studies and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models. Later lectures focus on modelling the interactions between the financial sector and the macroeconomy.

Information 

Here is a handout with a syllabus and a full reading list.

Here are guidelines on the format and content of the final exam. (Final version).

Here is last year’s final exam

Lecture Notes

1. Introduction: Time Series and Macroeconomics

2. Vector Autoregressions

3. Examples of VAR Studies

4. VARs With Long-Run Restrictions

5. Latent Variables: The Kalman Filter

6. Solving Models with Rational Expectations

7. The Real Business Cycle Model

8. The Phillips Curve

9. The Modern New-Keyesian Model (Technical background notes).

10. Estimating DSGE Models

11. The Smets-Wouters Model

12. Default Risk, Collateral and Credit Rationing

13. Banking: Crises and Regulation

14. The Future of Macroeconomics

RATS Programmes and Data

RATS programme generating charts for the first lecture. (Data set and required HP-filter programme.)

Two RATS programmes for Monetary Policy VARs: Identification One and Identification Two (Data Set).

RATS replication files for the Laubach-Williams paper.

RATS programme that produces RBC graphs in Part 7 (using Binder-Pesaran)

Dynare Programmes

Dynare is software that works with Matlab to solve and simulate DSGE models.  You can download it here and here is a page has a quick guide to getting started.

A large number of macroeconomic models from academic papers have been coded up in Dynare and made freely available, most notably at Volker Wieland’s Macro Model Database.  See below for a number of papers and corresponding Dynare programmes.

Programme for the RBC model in Part 7

A simple new Keynesian model.

Dynare can also estimate DSGE models using Bayesian techniques. Here is a link to a working example, including data, by Joao Madeira from the University of York.

Readings and Useful Links

John Cochrane (2005). Time Series for Macroeconomics and Finance (Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 7).

Christopher Sims (1980). Macroeconomics and Reality. (JSTOR).

Lutz Kilian (1998). Small-Sample Confidence Intervals for Impulse Response Functions.

Simon Jackman (2000). Estimation and Inference via Bayesian Simulation: An Introduction to Markov Chain Monte Carlo.

Marta Bańbura, Domenico Giannone, and Lucrezia Reichlin (2008). Large Bayesian VARs.

Lutz Kilian (2009). Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market.  (Here is the working paper version)

Christiane Baumeister and Lutz Killian (2016). Forty Years of Oil Price Fluctuations: Why the Price of Oil May Still Surprise Us.

Olivier Blanchard and Roberto Perotti (2002). An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output (JSTOR).

James Stock and Mark Watson (2001). Vector Autoregressions.

Glenn Rudebusch (1998). Do Measures of Monetary Policy in a Var Make Sense?(JSTOR).

Christopher Sims (1998). Comment on Glenn Rudebusch’s Do Measures of Monetary Policy in a Var Make Sense? (JSTOR).

Jordi Gali (1999). Technology, Employment and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations? (JSTOR).

Karl Whelan (2009). Technology Shocks and Hours Worked: Checking for Robust Conclusions.

Thomas Laubach and John C. Williams (2001). Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest. Updated estimates from the Laubach-Williams model from the San Francisco Fed.

Robert Lucas (1976). Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique.

Nicholas Higham and Hyun-Min Him (2002). Numerical Analysis of a Quadratic Matrix Equation.

Harald Uhlig (1995). A Toolkit for Analyzing Nonlinear Dynamic Stochastic Models Easily.

Timothy Cogley and James Nason (1995). Output Dynamics in Real-Business-Cycle Models.

Milton Friedman: The Role of Monetary Policy.

Robert J. Gordon: The History of the Phillips Curve: Consensus and Bifurcation

John M. Roberts. New Keynesian Economics and the Phillips Curve (JSTOR).

Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali, and Mark Gertler (1999). The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective.

Jordi Gali and Mark Gertler (1999). Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Econometric Analysis

Jeremy Rudd and Karl Whelan (2005). Modelling Inflation Dynamics: A Critical Review of Recent Research

Julio Rotemberg and Michael Woodford (1997). An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy.

Alistair Hall, Atsushi Inoue, James Nason and Barbara Rossi (2010). Information Criteria for Impulse Response Function Matching Estimation of DSGE Models.

Peter Ireland (2004).  A Method for Taking Models to the Data.

Francisco Ruge-Murcia (2007). Methods to Estimate Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models.

Jesus Fernández-Villaverde (2009). The Econometrics of DGSE Models.

Frank Smets and Rafael Wouters (2007). Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach. (ECB working paper version here; appendix with full model here).

Video of Chris Sims at INET conference: How Empirical Evidence Does or Does Not Influence Economic Thinking.

Ben Bernanke and Mark Gertler (1989). Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations.

Ben Bernanke, Mark Gertler and Simon Gilchrist (1999): The Financial Accelerator in a Quantitative Business Cycle Framework.

Mark Gertler’s lecture notes on financial frictions.

Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Weiss (1981). Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information.

Charles Goodhart (1998): Two Concepts of Money

Piergiorgio Alessandri and Andrew Haldane (Bank of England): Banking on the State

Simon Johnson: Economic Recovery And The Coming Financial Crisis.

Douglas Diamond and Raghuram Rajan: The Credit Crisis: Conjectures about Causes and Remedies

Documentation for the Basle 2 Internal Ratings Based model.

Philipp Hildebrand: Is Basel II Enough? The Benefits of a Leverage Ratio

New York Times: Risk Mismangement

Patrick Honohan: Bank Failures: The Limits of Risk Modelling

Andrew Haldane and Vasileios Madouros. The Dog and the Frisbee.

Karl Whelan: Containing Systemic Risk

Ben Bernanke: Implications of the Financial Crisis for Economics

Tobias Adrian and Hyun Song Shin (2008). Liquidity and Leverage.

Andrew Crockett: Marrying the Micro- and Macro-Prudential Dimensions of Financial Stability

Samuel Hanson, Anil Kashyap and Jeremy Stein: A Macroprudential Approach to Financial Regulation

Basle 3 Agreement

Accenture: Basle 3 Handbook

Andrew Haldane: The Bank and the banks.

Financial Stability Board press release on TLAC.

Bank of England (2009). RAMSI: a top-down stress-testing model

Olivier Blanchard, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, and Paolo Mauro (2010): Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy

Olivier Blanchard, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, and Paolo Mauro (2013): Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy II: Getting Granular.

Olivier Blanchard: Five Lessons for Economists from the Financial Crisis

Lawrence Summers (1991): The Scientific Illusion in Empirical Macroeconomics

Ricardo Cabellero (2010): Macroeconomics after the Crisis : Time to Deal with the Pretense-of-Knowledge Syndrome

Advanced Macroeconomics (ECON30120)

This is the class website for University College Dublin module Advanced Macroeconomics (ECON 30120) which was taught by Professor Karl Whelan in Spring 2021. Here is a brief introduction to the module.

 

Lecture Notes and Slides

0. Some Preliminaries on Equations. Slides here.

1. Introducing the IS-MP-PC Model. Slides here.

2. Analysing the IS-MP-PC Model. Slides here.

3. The Taylor Principle. Slides here.

4. The Zero Lower Bound and the Liquidity Trap. Slides here.

5. Rational Expectations and Asset Prices. Slides here.

6. Rational Expectations and Consumption. Slides here.

7. Exchange Rates, Interest Rates and Expectations. Slides here.

8. Growth Accounting. Slides here.

9. The Solow Model. Slides here.

10. Determinants of Total Factor Productivity. Slides here.

11. Before Growth: The Malthusian Model. Slides here.

12. Population & Resources: Malthus and the Environment. Slides here.

 

Readings

Carl Walsh (2002): Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

Milton Friedman (1968): The Role of Monetary Policy.

John Taylor (1993): Discretion Versus Policy Rules in Practice

Bank of England (2012): State of the Art of Inflation Targeting

Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali and Mark Gertler: Monetary Policy Rules
and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory

Ben Bernanke:  Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan

Paul Krugman: Earth to Ben Bernanke. Chairman Bernanke Should Listen to Professor Bernanke

Robert Shiller: Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?

John Campbell and Robert Shiller. Valuation Ratios and the Long-Run Stock Market Outlook: An Update.

Robert Lucas. Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique.

Robert Hall. Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence.

Maurice Obstfeld, Jay C. Shambaugh, Alan M. Taylor (2004). The Trilemma in History: Tradeoffs among Exchange Rates, Monetary Policies, and Capital Mobility

Robert Solow: Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function.

Bureau of Labor Statistics MFP Trends — 2018

Karl Whelan: Is the U.S. Set for an Era of Slow Growth?

Alwyn Young: A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change
in Hong Kong and Singapore

Edward Miguel and Gerard Roland: The Long Run Impact of Bombing Vietnam

Paul Krugman: The Myth of Asia’s Miracle.

Paul Romer: Endogenous Technological Change.

Robert Gordon: Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds

Robert E. Hall and Charles I. Jones. Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?

Douglass North. Institutional Change: A Framework of Analysis.

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson. The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.

Dani Rodrik, Arvind Subramanian, and Francesco Trebbi. Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development.

Robert Gillanders and Karl Whelan. Open For Business? Institutions, Business Environment and Economic Development.

Gregory Clark (2007). A Farewell to Alms. Chapter One: The Sixteen Page Economic History of the World.

Gregory Clark (2007). A Farewell to Alms. Chapter Two: The Logic of the Malthusian Economy.

Thomas Malthus (1798). An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Gapminder: Wonderful animated graphs on health, incomes and other things.

James Brander and M. Scott Taylor (1998). The Simple Economics of Easter Island: A Ricardo-Malthus Model of Renewable Resource Use

Links to Macro Data

Data from Ireland Central Statistics Office

Irish Housing Statistics

National Account Data for EU Countries: AMECO Online

US National Accounts data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

US macro and financial data (and some international data) from the St. Louis Fed’s FRED. Good for charts.

IMF World Economic Outlook database

Cross-Country PPP-comparable data from the Penn World Table.

Jorda-Schularick-Taylor MacroHistory database. Covers 17 advanced economies since 1870

US financial data from the Federal Reserve Board.

The ECB’s Data Portal.

US stock market data from Robert Shiller.

Ken French‘s data on returns for various types of stock portfolios.

Data from the World Bank on health, development, finance and other things.

Data Sources and Websites for International Money and Banking

Data Sources

Asset and Liabilities of US Banks. From the Federal Reserve.

Statistical Data Warehouse. From the ECB.

FRED. The St. Louis Fed. Very good for charts.

The EONIA rate (European Overnight Interest Average)

Volume of overnight unsecured lending in the Euro area.

The ECB’s Balance Sheet.

The Fed’s Balance Sheet (Factors Supplying Funds is Assets, Factors Absorbing Funds is Liabilities)

Selected Interest Rates from the Federal Reserve.

 

Economics Blogs That Sometimes Cover Issues Related to this Course

My blog.

FT Alphaville.  Detailed coverage of financial news stories.

Bruegel. Think-tank covering European economic policy issues.

Economist’s View. Academic Mark Thoma from Oregon offers views and links to articles on the US economy.

Calculated Risk. An excellent site for US economic news, with a particular focus on housing.

Paul Krugman. Thoughts on macro from a Nobel prize winner. Best accessed via Twitter or you’ll run into the New York Times’s 10 articles per month limit.

Econbrowser. US macroeconomic commentary from academics Menzie Chinn and Jim Hamilton.

Mainly Macro. A thoughtful UK-oriented blog from Simon-Wren Lewis of Oxford

Monetary Dialogue with the ECB. Not a blog but lots of papers by leading European economists on monetary policy issues.

International Money and Banking

Lecture notes for the University College Dublin module International Money and Banking (ECON30150) which was taught by Professor Karl Whelan in Autumn 2023.

Lecture Notes

0. Introduction

1. Banks and Financial Intermediation

2. Liquidity and Solvency

3. Central Banks

4. The Fed and the ECB

5. Banking Crises

6. Incentive Problems in Banking and the Need for Regulation

7. Micro-Prudential Banking Regulation

8. Macro-Prudential Banking Regulation

9. The Money Supply

10. Monetarism

11. How Central Banks Set Interest Rates: The Federal Reserve

12. How Central Banks Set Interest Rates: The ECB

13. Long-Term Interest Rates

14. Default Risk and Collateral, Quantitative Easing

15. The Phillips Curve: Evidence and Implications

16. Real Interest Rates and the Taylor Rule

17. Exchange Rate Regimes and the Euro

18. The Euro Crisis