This course develops the tools to analyze the macroeconomy with models and data. We cover four topics: how economic activity is measured; why some countries are rich and others poor; how households make consumption and saving decisions over time; and how firms choose employment and investment. Together these build the foundation for Macroeconomics (II) and for later courses in money, banking, and international finance.
The emphasis throughout is on understanding why each model is built the way it is. We derive results from assumptions step by step rather than asking you to memorize them. By the end of the semester, you should be able to read macroeconomic news critically, evaluate the reasoning behind policy decisions, and apply the course models to current developments in Taiwan and the world economy, which we discuss regularly in class.