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The Strange Name of Core Macro Courses

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A while ago, I expressed my disagreement on Twitter with using the name “macro” to describe the core course in PhD programs that introduces students to dynamic mathematical methods. While every program has its own version of that class, this book is representative of the type of material they cover.

The first problem with calling a course like this “macro” is that you’re not going to learn much about the macroeconomy or macroeconomic research. The goal of the course is to teach methods, and that’s what the goal should be. It’s only one slice of macro. You’re not going to see coverage of empirical research on Taylor rules, structural VARs, forecasting, or Bayesian estimation of DSGE models, even though many of us feel those qualify as important parts of the field.

I could probably let that all slide, since no course is comprehensive. A lot of places even specify that it’s a course in macro theory, so the omission of empirical topics isn’t the end of the world. What bothers me more is that these are not tools used only in macroeconomics. The titles of the opening chapters of the Ljungqvist and Sargent book include

What’s macro-specific about those topics? They’re methods that are used widely in industrial organization, labor, public, and most anything involving dynamics. Is John Rust a macroeconomist? How about these two? How about Jim Heckman?

Then they move on to applications:

How exactly does this constitute a course in “macroeconomics” in the absence of an meaningless label? These are dynamic methods, not macroeconomics, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to use a name that describes the content of the course.


24 September 2021

Post written by Lance Bachmeier