Macroeconomics I

Recommended Prerequisites

NA

Teaching Methods

- Lectures: presentation of fundamental contents.

- Practical classes:

- Exercise solving.

- Encouraging learning by doing: students solve practical exercises as independently as possible, with the support of the teacher who oversees the success of all students.

- Encouraging student’s participation, thanks to an important weight on the final grade of the continuing evaluation component (evaluation of the student's performance in the classroom) and a challenging attitude of the teacher.

Learning Outcomes

Overall objectives: Provide students with the basic knowledge of macroeconomic theory, using literary, mathematical and diagrammatic language.

Specific objectives: Develop the fundamental models of macroeconomic theory, including the IS/LM and aggregate supply/demand models, both in the context of an open as well as of a closed economy, and equip students with the ability to use such models to understand the observed behaviour of macroeconomic aggregates and economic policy implications.

 Generic competencies

- understand and manipulate thoughts and ideas

- apply acquired knowledge, adapting it to new realities

Specific competencies

- explain the meaning of macroeconomic aggregates and use them in simple calculations

- describe the nature of "currency", money supply changes, and the role of money in the macroeconomic model

- handle basic macroeconomic models

- possess information concerning major macroeconomic issues.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

  1. Macroeconomics: issues and measurement

  2. Basic models of the determination of GDP

  3. GDP and prices in the short run; the AS/AD model

  4. GDP and prices in the long run

  5. Money and monetary institutions.

  6. The role of money in Macroeconomics.

  7. The IS/LM model

  8. The balance of payments and the exchange rate

  9. Inflation

10. Unemployment.

Head Lecturer(s)

Marta Cristina Nunes Simões

Assessment Methods

Final Assessment
Exam: 100.0%

Continuous Assessment
Mixed regime with midterm exam : 100.0%

Bibliography

ANDRADE, João Sousa - Introdução à economia. 2ª ed.. Coimbra : Minerva, 1999. [BP 330.1 AND]

BLANCHARD, Olivier ; AMIGHINI, Alessia ;  GIAVAZZI, Francesco – Macroeconomics : a European perspective. Harlow : Prentice Hall, 2010. [BP 330.101.541 BLA]

LIPSEY, Richard G. ; CHRYSTAL, K. Alec - Economics. 12th ed.. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011. [BP 330.1 LIP]

MANKIW, N. Gregory - Principles of economics. 6th ed.. [South Melbourne] : South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012. [BP 330.1 MAN]

SAMUELSON, Paul A. ; NORDHAUS, William D. - Economia. 19th ed. Lisboa : McGraw-Hill de Portugal, 2009. [BP 330.1 SAM]