wir110 - Macroeconomic Theory (Complete module description)

-

At the end of the course, successful students: • understand the interdependence of market processes and economic policy in the subsystems of the economy, • avoid fallacies of composition in the nexus of microeconomics and macroeconomics, • use macroeconomics as a tool to analyse current economic and political issues, • translate economic problems into models that describe macroeconomic causalities and interdependencies by reasonable reductions of complexity, • interpret selected data in the light of macroeconomic theories.

The course starts with an introduction to the principles of national accounting which serve as point of departure for the presentation of basic macroeconomic models in short-term, medium-term and long-term perspectives. Short-term: Consumption, saving, investment and finance in the closed-economy IS/LM framework. Medium-term: Labour supply & demand, production and inflation in the AS/AD framework and extensions to open-economy analysis. Long-term: capital accumulation, technical progress and economic growth in different approaches. The basic models are presented in words, algebra and diagrams with the aid of case studies and other exemplary material.

Blanchard, O. & Illing, G. (2017): Makroökonomie (7. Aufl.). München: Pearson. (or English versions: Blanchard, O.: Macroeconomics, 7th ed. Pearson 2017) Trautwein, H.-M. (2014): Makroökonomik (3rd ed.). Oldenburg: Verlag für Wirtschaft, Informatik und Recht.

http://www.vwl.uni-oldenburg.de/

The module combines lectures and tutorials. The lectures present the contents in terms of macroeconomic models and their contexts, while the tutorials serve to improve the understanding of the models by way of exercises. Course materials are uploaded on the Stud.IP website of the module.

end of term

written exam; voluntary contributions that improve grades may undertaken as 'portfolio-presentations' during tutorials