Syllabus for 712, Jose Víctor Ríos Rull pshields.png

Topics in Quantitative Macroeconomics

Course Description

  • This course should be thought of as a Macro/Labor course that should be of interest to people that care about both areas. Its main purpose is to link models and data i.e. to answer quantitative questions that we are interested in (in the process of doing so, some interesting theoretical questions arise). We will develop tools by stating general questions, and then discussing how to approach its answer.

  • It is also driven by students’ interests so the content will vary depending on what you care about. Now is the time to raise your concerns.

  • This is a Ph.D. course not a Masters course. We are not here to learn about existing work but to learn about how to do work, and, therefore, it requires to do some things.

  • Format. Classes will be a combination of students presentations and lectures. The topic is the student’s choice as long as it has to do somewhat with a question with an applied angle that aggregates.

  • This course is tightly related to Dirk Krueger’s simultaneous course. I expect that you are able to pose and solve models of the Imrohoroglu/Aiyagari/Huggett family including transitions.

Grading Rules and Registration

  • Registered students should present once and answer a homework. Such homework will be writing code to replicate results or answer a question or something like that. I will propose various during the course. Students then talk to me about what they want to do. I expect that you should be able to do all things that I propose. The homework is due April 29, 2020 at NOON in my emailbox.

  • For those that do not register but take the course, I recommend that you also present and do a homework.

Possible Topics that are related to my work and we can talk about are

Possible papers to present are

Other Topics to discuss (not necessarily related to my work)

  • Human Capital Investment models. This topic will involve a problem with two dimensional endogenous assets and investment. All should do (or be able to do) this. This problem should be posed recursively. I also ask for some people to look at how to solve the problem with two dimensions, assets and a continuous shock, and to propose innovative ways of solving it. A possible place to start is here.

  • How to think of a family versus an individual. We can discus how decisions are made within families and how families shapes preferences. We can talk about various features of family models. How to pose preferences, how to pose bequests, what is the meaning of complete markets.

  • I can talk about how to extract information from life insurance data. We started discussing endogenous family formation.

  • We can talk of new models of migration.

  • The Fall of Labor Share

Date: 2020-03-10 Tue 00:00

Author: José Víctor Ríos Rull (using Zhitao Gong’s org.css)

Created: 2020-01-14 Tue 17:29

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