advanced econ syllabus

macro 1 Growth and innovation
This course provides an introduction in modern economic growth theory. It recapitulates exogenous growth models and discusses their key policy implications. It gives an overview over the mechanisms leading to endogenous growth, and provides an overview over empirical results and recent developments in the area of economic growth. We will shed light on why long‑term growth is possible or desirable and why the growth performance of countries is so different. Various methods to analyze intertemporal problems are studied: Hamiltonian, Lagrange, phase diagrams. We discuss the role of economic policy on economic growth and in particular the functioning of policies of intrinsically dynamic and long‑ run behavior, such as public debt or pension finance. At the end, the students should be able to read and critically assess the modern dynamic macroeconomic literature and its empirical applications. They are further expected to master the methods analytically. Along these lines, the course shall provide the foundation to apply these tools in independent research, e.g., the MA thesis. Course structure 1. Introduction and Preliminaries 2. Neoclassical Growth. Hamiltonian and Phase Diagram Method 3. Overlapping Generations Models. Social Security and Public Debt 4. Endogenous Growth: Innovation and Creative Destruction

macro 2 asset prices and fluctuations and unemployment

This course covers economic fluctuations, business cycles, unemployment and labour markets. The lecture consists of the following parts: 1. Consumption 2. Investment 3. Asset prices 4. Real Business Cycles 5. Unemployment and Labour Markets Qualification: The course will familiarise participants with key components of aggregate income: consumption and investment. Course participants will learn how assets are priced and get an introduction into real business‑cycle theory. Finally, the course will introduce students to modern theories of unemployment. Methods: Students will learn how to solve dynamic optimisation problems. This will require the use of Hamiltonians, phase diagrams, log‑ linearization and value functions.


micro 1 consumers firms and markets

The lecture develops the classical theory of consumer and firm behavior and explains how private agents (and government) interact in markets. It shows how general equilibrium in perfectly competitive markets ensures maximum welfare, given resource constraints. It then illustrates how distortions in goods, labor and capital markets lead to welfare inferior general equilibrium that can be improved by regulation and government intervention. Course contents will be precisely described in a course outline available on Canvas at the beginning of the semester. Tentative contents are: Introduction and Consumer Theory Consumer Theory: Applications Theory of the Firm Theory of the Firm: Applications Risk Taking General Equilibrium and Welfare General Equilibrium: Applications

micro 2 incentive theory

In many economic interactions, one party has an informational advantage over its partners in trade: a worker who knows own ability and effort better than the employer, and insuree who knows own risk and precautionary effort better than the insurer, an entrepreneur who knows business prospects better than credit lenders, etc. This course develops the microeconomic toolkit to analyze such settings and to understand how these informational asymmetries affect the optimal design of contracts and ultimately efficiency of trade. The treatment is structured around the canonical two cases in which (i) a party has private information on inherent attribures (models of ʺscreeningʺ and ʺsignalingʺ), and in which (ii) a party has private information on own actions (models of ʺmoral hazardʺ). The course will discuss applications in various fields such as corporate finance, insurance economics, labor economics, and industrial organization. Contents will be precisely described on StudyNet/Canvas at the beginning of the course sequence. A preliminary tentative outline includes the following topics: Introduction and preliminaries: trade under symmetric info, preview of informational issues. Monopolistic screening (context: selling a good). Competitive screening (context: insurance markets). Applications to corporate finance. Signaling (context: education and the labor market). Applications to corporate finance (certification and collateralization). Moral hazard (context: incentive contracts).

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