| Learning Objectives: Test understanding and utilisation of important macro concepts. |
| Group activity: “Macro Policy Workshop“, March 2018 |
| Instructor Resource: “Macro Policy Workshop: Solutions”, March 2018 |
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapters 8 & 9 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Apply monetary policy judgment to current macroeconomic data. |
| Group activity: MPC Simulation, December 2012 |
You can read more details about the Bank of England’s MPC here. I used to regularly participate in the Shadow MPC. A useful resource may be the Kaleidic Dashboard.
| Group activity: ECB Simulation, March 2011 |
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 8 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Calculate foreign exchange. Understand Balance of Payments. |
Group activity: Josko Joras (A), December 2012
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For an open economy
GDP = C + I + G + (X – M).
However it’s important to realise that imports don’t subtract from GDP.
Read more about the Big Mac index at The Economist. For more on how Argentina games it, see:
Here’s an intro to Balance of Payments:
Instructor Resource:
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| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 10 (Sections 10.2 and 10.3) of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Estimate the welfare effects of trade intervention |
Group activity:
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The best way to understand economic interdependence is the classic pamphlet I, Pencil.
This guy attempted to make a sandwich from scratch. It cost $1500 and took 3 months. It’s remarkable how cheap and plentiful sandwiches are, due to an extended global supply chain and division of labou.
This video shows the history of globalisation through some important maps:
Here we use basic demand and supply analysis to look at the welfare effects of trade intervention:
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 10 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Perform back of the envelope calculations to estimate the fiscal multiplier for a range of different countries. |
Group activity: “Fiscal Multiplier Worksheet“, March 2018
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| Instructor Resource: “Fiscal Multiplier Worksheet: Solution”, March 2018 |
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 9 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
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| Learning Objectives: Apply the One Target One Tool framework to actual policy decisions. |
Case: “The Euro in Crisis: Decision Time at the European Central Bank” Harvard Business School case no. 9-711-049
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For an account of the financial crisis:
The key goal for monetary authorities is credibility: [Credibility flashcard]
What constitutes an optimal currency areas? [Optimal Currency Areas flashcard]
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 8 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Understand the root causes of inflation, and contribute to policy discussions. Understand how monetary policy affects business decision-making and thus generates macroeconomic fluctuations |
| Lecture handout: Monetary policy* |
This lecture covers a lot of ground but tries to give you a relatively simple, usable framework to relate monetary economics to monetary policy decisions. One problem when studying macroeconomics is the belief that it equips us with an ability to forecast. See my video on Economic Prediction for why I think we need to be careful.
The key finding of monetary economics is that the root cause of inflation is excessive money creation. We looked at some specific examples of hyperinflation, and to learn more you can watch “Zimbabwe and Hyperinflation: Who Wants to Be a Trillionaire?” (Marginal Revolution University). The BBC has an article to show how you can calculate your own personal inflation rate (provided it’s 2015 and you live in the UK!).
Conventional monetary policy is a simple link between a target (usually inflation) and a tool (interest rates). During the lecture I implied that central bankers change interest rates relative to the current rate. In some cases, however, they may be trying to move the policy rate closer to some sort of benchmark. A common benchmark can be calculate using a Taylor Rule. For examples, see Kaleidic Economics.
The key goal for monetary authorities is credibility: [Credibility flashcard]
To get a feel for how central bankers should respond to changing conditions, try these simulators:
A corridor system is when the central bank targets three policy rates. We looked at how those rates changed from 2003-2015 in the Eurozone. The ECB website has more recent data.
The Dynamic AD-AS model is a really good way to think through macro events. If it is unclear after the Monetary and Fiscal policy lectures, there are plenty more resources on this page of my website.
The lecture also introduces the concept of the signal extraction problem. This isn’t the most intuitive concept to grasp, but it explains how nominal shocks can have real effects. In other words how changes in the money supply can affect inflation and real growth. A good article on this is Steve Horwitz’s ‘The Parable of the Broken Traffic Lights“.
What constitutes an optimal currency areas? [Optimal Currency Areas flashcard]
I also like the “Econ Talk” podcast, and the episodes with Milton Friedman on Money (August 28th 2006), Allan Meltzer on Inflation (Feb 23rd 2009), and Charles Calomiris on the Financial Crisis (Oct 26, 2009), are particularly relevant.
What is a yield curve:
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 7 (Sections 7.3, 7.5 and 7.6) and Chapter 8 (Section 8.1 and 8.2) of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Assess the efficacy of fiscal stimulus and aggregate demand management. |
| Lecture handout: Fiscal policy* |
Keynesian approaches to aggregate demand management became popular because they were seen to have explained the problem of the Great Depression. My video on the Great Depression explores some of the history, and also have a video looking at The Financial Crisis of 2008-09. The big debate between Keynesian and Hayekian economics was popularised by Russ Roberts and John Papola in the rap battles Fear the Boom and Bust and Fight of the Century.
For some documentaries on the Obama stimulus, see:
Here’s the official website of the Williamson Tunnels and for more on Chinese “ghost towns” you can watch China’s Empty City, or read this short World Bank blog post on the Rise of the Chinese Ghost Town. The photo of manual labourers in North Korea scrubbing the road comes from this article, and my grad school buddy Curtis Melvin created North Korea Economy Watch. Despite what I say in the lecture… not all dog rescues are disasters….
Some podcast episodes that I particularly recommend:
The content on policymakers feeling pressurized to “do something” is an element of crisis management more generally. An interesting example of the types of trade off that policymakers face is BBC Radio 4’s ‘Discussion Time: Coronovirus‘. Even though it relates to an epidemiology situation, it is relevent for any PR situation. Policymakers face a balance between maintaining public confidence, being seen to be providing a quick and clear response, without inciting a general panic. This relies on having good frameworks and tools that relate to the specific situation (the Radio 4 panel explain how important expert forecasts of the spread of foot and mouth disease were, in a recession economic impact studies play a critical role); but also an ability to manage public expectations. The goal of successful crisis management is to balance these things without introducing new uncertainties.
Finally, my video on Macro Policy summarises policy makers options. [Macro Policy flashcard]
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 9 (Section 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4) of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
Case: “Rovna Dan: The Flat Tax in Slovakia”, Harvard Business School case no. 9-707-043, March 2010
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When talking about macroeconomics I think it’s important to distinguish between the overall economy and the circumstances of an individual firm. We can’t always assume that macro conditions are felt the same by each company within it. I explain more in this video:
In terms of a flat tax, here is a short video asking “Would a Flat Tax Be More Fair?” There’s a good HBS article, from 2007, called “All Eyes on Slovakia’s Flat Tax”. Slovakia repealed the fat tax in 2013, which you can read about on this LSE Blog: “Slovakia has abolished its flat tax rate, but other Eastern and Central European countries are likely to continue with the policy.”
Here are some newspaper attempts to explain fiscal implications of tax policy:
Regarding public finance more generally, in 2012 I participated in the 2020 Tax Commission. You can read our report here.
Regarding tax compliance, you may hear things like:
Apple can pretty much choose how much tax it wants to pay and to whom. One EU estimate was that it pad less than 0-01% tax on profits of over $100 billion (Frisby 2019, p.175)
This may be true, but it doesn’t mean that tax is voluntary. The choice that Apple have is over what activities they undertake, each of which have different tax implications. So they can affect their tax obligations, but only in as much as they alter their business decisions. They are still at the mercy of the state.
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 7 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
| Learning Objectives: Understand the foundations of economic growth. See how economic growth theories inform development economics. |
| Lecture handout: Growth theory* |
Here is an introduction to the Solow model (more videos in the series are here)
Growth is like an iPhone:
See my Country competitiveness Dashboard.
Consider this photo of Nik Wallenda, cycling across a tightrope:
In the lecture I showed the dramatic transformation of Hong Kong harbour, as an example of fast economic growth.
In 1945 Hong Kong was a poor territory. After war and Japanese occupation many of its 600,000 people were starving. They had no traditionally considered natural resources, and yet soon became a major manufacturing location, the busiest port in the world, and a centre of the global financial market.
According to reasonable internet sources, Hong Kong’s GDP per capita is now bigger than the UK’s.
What happened? In 1945 civil servant John Cowperthwaite made Hong Kong a free port, which meant no tariffs for most goods, no export subsidies, and few restrictions on imports. Trade grew quickly.
On the supply side, it is not as though Hong Kong’s services lack in any way. The territory has the fourth best education system in the world, according to Pearson, and it ranks top of Bloomberg’s healthcare index. Its public transport system was ranked the world’s best last year, and it is consistently used as a model elsewhere (Frisby, 2019, p.13)
Perhaps even more powerfully, Hong Kong has been used as a model for other areas on mainland China. In 1980 Shenzhen became a “special economic zone” with low taxes and market-friendly regulation. The population rose from 30,000 to 13 million. Here’s Hong Kong in 12 amazing photos.
In 2014 I attended a Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Hong Kong. Here I am in front of that amazing skyline, with my undergraduate econ study partner!
For more see Frisby 2019, Chapter 2.
Some other nice examples of side by side growth include this view of London from Greenwich, 40 years apart:
Here is Phnom Penh, 9 years apart:
| These resources form part of my Managerial Economics course map. You can watch the full YouTube playlist here. This page ties into Chapter 12 of ‘Markets for Managers’. |
