Skip to main content

A short interlude...

Hello all, it's been quite some time since I have made any major announcements since the creation of this blog about a year and a half ago. I am currently in graduate school and will soon take a portion of my comprehensive examination (i.e exams in Micro, Macro, and Metrics that will allow me to continue my studies in my graduate program), wish me luck! Thus, I will not be able to post consistently until at least mid-June.

The roadmap is as such, if I pass, I will start introductory lessons in Econometrics and Statistics (if not, then I'll have to study until I can retake the comps in August). I hope that once I am done, I will be able to add more advance materials to the blog, such as general equilibrium, indirect utility functions, and game theory/mechanism design for Micro. The Solow, Ramsey, RBC, New Keynesian models, permanent income hypothesis (PIH) and more for Macro. By the way I think I still need to add notes on the IS-LM curves, so I will do that before jumping to the more advanced models. Finally, if time permits I will start to post R or STATA codes and example of useful statistical methods for Econometrics.

In the mean time, I thought that I might share with you a list of interesting blogs (either by economists or dealing with economics) that might be helpful or interesting to you.

Economics blogs (no particular ranking):

1. Thomas Piketty's blog: This blog is updated monthly, Piketty gives his point of view on various issues regarding inequality and supporting them with data. This isn't too "economic" heavy and is very approachable from a layman's perspective.  Always a fun read.

2. Economics Help: This website is very similar to what I do (I have even cited them on this blog). It covers what a 100 level class in either Micro or Macro would. The explanations are clear and concise and the author, Tejvan Pettinger, makes great use of graphs. Note that this blog is less equation/computing problem heavy than yours truly.

3. International Economics: This online textbook that focuses on Macroeconomics is a very good source for students who have just started to learn economics but want to learn more. I think I cited them in the past on this blog, unlike Economics Help, this textbook isn't afraid to use formulas/equations (though it is still quite friendly to novices).

4. Krugman's op-ed: Every week, the Nobel prize economist Paul Krugman posts an article in the New York Times regarding a particular social issue, and uses data and economic theory to derive a conclusion. Compared to Piketty's posts this is a bit more "economic" focused.

5. Larry Summers' blog: Another well known Macroeconomist makes the list. Lawrence Summers well known in recent history for his work on secular stagnation publishes his opinion on his blog about recent fiscal and monetary policies. This is a great way to be updated on recent US economic policies.

See you soon!


Labels:
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Macroeconomics: multiplier and crowding out effects

Multiplier effect: whenever   any of the components of AD increases, the increase in GDP will be greater than the initial increase in expenditures. The impact on GDP of a particular increase in spending depends on the proportion of the new income that is taken out of the system to the proportion that continues to circulate in the economy. The multiplier effect tells us the impact a particular change in one the components of AD will have on the total income (GDP).  Let k denote the spending multiplier, which is a function of MPC and MPS. The larger the marginal propensity to consume, the larger the spending multiplier. Notice that the larger the MPC, the greater the impact a particular change in the spending variables will have on the nation's GDP. The crowding out effect: If government spending increases without an increase in taxes, the government must borrow funds from the private sector to finance its deficit, thereby increasing the interest rate. This increase in interest ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Exercise: inflation and GDP deflator

You have the following table containing information about country Y's GDP deflator, nominal, and real GDP. If the base year is 2015, fill in the blanks and then find the annual inflation rate for each year. Year  Nominal GDP  GDP Deflator  Real GDP 2015 $23,457 100 $23,457 2016 $25,752 ... $23,943 2017 $25,982 108.1 ... 2018 $26,016 ... $25,431.1 2019 $26,323 105.5 ... Solution: Year  Nominal GDP  GDP Deflator  Real GDP   Inflation rate 2015 $23,457 100 $23,457 n.a 2016 $25,752 107.6 $23,943 7.6% 2017 $25,982 108.1 $24,035.2 0.45% 2018 $26,016 102.3 $25,431.1 -5.37% 2019 $26,323 105.5 $24,950.6 3.13%  GDP deflator for the year 2018: Real GDP for the year 2017: General formula to find real GDP by re-arranging the GDP deflator formula: Notice that the sub-index i is for the year. The (annual) inflation rate is simply the growth rate of prices from a year to its previous year: Inflation rate of the year 2018: Notice that in 2018 country Y experienced...
Post a Comment
Read more

Exercise: Payoff matrix -Oligopoly market-

You are given a payoff matrix for two firms in an oligopoly market. Find the dominant strategy (if any) for each firm. What profit would they each earn if they form a cartel (if possible)? Can the cartel hold in the long run? If not, what is the long run equilibrium? Payoff Matrix:  Firm A: high prices  Firm A: low prices Firm B: high prices A: $1000 B: $1000 A: $1200 B: $800 Firm B: low prices A: $600 B: $1200 A: $700 B: $700 The dominant strategy for firm A is to charge a low price for its product. You can see that no matter what firm B chooses, firm A is always better off by choosing the low price option (i.e its profit is always bigger than if it had charged a high price). The strategy for firm B depends on the choices firm A makes. If firm A charges a high (low) price then firm B should charge a low (high) price. In order to find the point at which the firms would collude (i.e act as one monopolistic firm), find the point(s) where the sum of economic profits is the greate...
Post a Comment
Read more