The course will give the students an overview of key macroeconomic relationships and provide insight into the use of models to analyze these relationships in an open economy.
The first part of the course covers central macroeconomic models of economic growth (Solow, Solow-Romer).
The labor market, an important factor market, is discussed in detail where we also focus on institutions and settings in the European and the Norwegian labor markets.
The course also addresses fluctuations in production and employment. Money, prices and inflation are introduced and discussed. The IS curve is derived with a special focus on consumption and investment behavior. Then monetary policy and the monetary policy (MP) curve are introduced. The supply side of the economy is introduced through the Phillips curve. The investment-savings (IS) curve, the MP curve and the Phillips curve are finally put together in a complete model of the aggregate economy, the so-called AS-AD model.
With these buildings blocks, topics such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, the financial crisis, international trade and exchange rates are analyzed and discussed.
The course addresses issues of high relevance for both the Norwegian and the international economy.