Information about courses I've taught and teaching resources.
This course focuses on monetary theory, financial intermediation, and central bank policy. The first part of the curriculum develops a theoretical framework used to explain the existence of money and banks, demonstrating key relationships between the availability of liquid assets, inflation, output, and regulations imposed on banks. Second, we discuss the real world business of banking which includes deposit creation, fractional reserve banking, and the interbank market. Third, we discuss the role of central banks in modern economies and analyze the conduct of monetary policy.
Course Materials: Access the Money and Banking Jupyter Book
This course discusses the canonical models of international trade and international macroeconomics. The first part of the curriculum introduces students the foundational theories of trade including Ricardio, Heckscher-Ohlin, and models of monopolistic competition. The second part develops a RBC model of an open economy based on the intertemporal approach to the current account.
Course Materials: Access the International Trade Jupyter Book
This course discusses the search and bargaining approach to understanding economies characterized by frictions in goods, labor and financial markets. In departing from classical equilibrium theory, this class explores phenomena such as unemployment, pricing strategies, production capacity choices, financial contracts, and business cycles.
Course Materials: Access the Money and Banking Jupyter BookThis course discusses foundational models of macroeconomics at an advanced undergraduate or early graduate level. Topics include the Solow model, Diamond- Mortensen-Pissardes labor search, theories of the price level and nominal interest rates, and finally a IS-LM-MP model of short-run.
All my courses focus on delivering foundational economic theories in order to cultivate within students an ability to think critically "like an economist." It is easy, especially as we learn more, to get lost in the mathematical minutiae of economic models or develop a myopic focus on the tools of the trade rather than seeking true insight. I continually emphasis core principles from economic theory to help students navigate these waters. More recently, I've devoted more class time to show students how economic data validates or refutes said theories; providing code to pull data from popular databases (e.g. World Bank, FRED), visualize data, and interpret the data through economic theory. My goal is to strike a balance between grounding thought in rigorous theory, interpreting real-world economic news, and developing technical tools to understand economic data.