The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning outcomes

Macroeconomics is to economics what cosmology is to physics. It studies the aggregate phenomena of an economic system. It does not inquiry on the infinitely small, such as a single firm or the behaviour of an individual (the field of microeconomics), but it deals with the overall forces of an economic system. Like cosmology, macroeconomics too asks ultimate questions on the “massimi sistemi”. In short, what is made the wealth of a nation, and how much is it, from where does such wealth come from, and where (i.e. to whom) does it end. It is not necessary to be a cosmologist to know that “il sole e le altre stelle” do exist. Equally, one can speak about GDP, aggregate consumption, industrial investment, inflation without knowing the subject matter involved in these phenomena. However, common sense apart, one cannot answer how the PIL is formed, who has produced it, how much it has been consumed or invested, and the effects these decisions have generated, without some training in macroeconomics.
The first aim of the lectures consists to providing such basic training. The level of exposition will be introductory, but not superficial. Some basic mathematical knowledge is required (mainly on linear functions), since there will be an extensive use of graphics and equations. Three markets, that make up a typical economic system, will be examined in succession: (1) the good market, (2) the financial and monetary market, (3) the labour market. The laws of these three markets will be carefully analyzed, as well as their interactions in determining the economic equilibrium (or disequilibrium) of an economic system.
But macroeconomics is not cosmology. If cosmology cannot usually change the phenomena it studies, this is not the case of macroeconomics. Similarly to what happens to other social sciences, macroeconomists aim at knowing the world not just for the sake of knowledge, but also for the sake of improving the world. Coherently, the second aim of these lectures will be to point out the role played by economic policy (in the three markets) in promoting – or at least in our difficult times, in preserving) the “wealth of nations”.

Program

Lectures will be both on theory and on exercises.
The main topics that will be addressed are the following:

1. Macroeconomics: History of Economic Thought and Economic History
2. National Accounts and further Empirical Evidence
3. The market of goods
4. The financial and monetary market
5. The IS-LM model
6. The labour market
7. Unemployment and inflation: the Phillips curve
8. The AD-AS equilibrium model
9. Economic growth
10. The accumulation of capital and the technical progress
11. The role of expectations and inflationary effects
12. The open economy
13. Macroeconomics and Economic Policy

Textbook References:
Blanchard, Olivier, Macroeconomia, Il Mulino, 2009. Part II, III, IV, V, VI, VIII, and X.

Findlay D.W. Esercizi di Macroeconomia. Guida allo studio del testo di Olivier Blanchard, Il Mulino, 2009.

Examination Methods

Final exam:
Written exam with a multiple-choice test and numerical exercises.
Optional Oral exam for those that have passed the written exam.