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

Econometrics: Bivariate population model

Hello I'm finally back from my extended break. I thought that we should start studying Econometrics.  Let's begin by analyzing a simple bivariate regression. Assume that this equation describes the relationship between two variables X and Y. We say that Y is the dependent variable, whereas X is the independent variable. In other words, we assume that Y (the output) depends on X (the input). Epsilon is the error term, it represents other factors that affect Y. The error term must be uncorrelated with the variable X so that we do not need to include them in our regression, and thus the coefficient of X (beta) should not change, even though Epsilon also determines Y.  beta-0 is the constant term. It tells us what would be Y if X=0. beta-1 is the effect on Y if X changes by one unit. To see this, assume X=education is a continuous function, let's take the derivative of Y=wage with respect to X: Thus, if education goes up by one unit, we should expect, on average, wage to go up
Post a Comment
Read more

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 rate,
Post a Comment
Read more

Econometrics: OLS estimates

  Let X and Y be column vectors and the sample has the size n: The vector beta contains both the coefficient of X as well as the coefficient for the intercept. This is equivalent to writing this equation: We will assume that the expected value of the error term is 0 (this can be done by construction), and that X is uncorrelated to epsilon. Assume the following is for population data. Let's prove that statement: Since we know that the covariance between X and epsilon is 0, it follows that the expected value of X times the error term must also be 0. Since we do not have access to the actual expected value of the distribution, let's use the sample data instead: The hat on the covariance signifies that this is a MM estimator. Let's use the fact that the sample mean of epsilon is also equal to 0, then:   Using the estimation for the covariance and that the expected value of the error term equals 0: Then we have: To get this result, you must use the properties of the summation op
Post a Comment
Read more