syllabus history of macroeconomics.pdf

7/27/2019 Syllabus History of Macroeconomics.pdf

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Semester 2, 2013

TI1 291:

History of Macro Economics

Administrative Details

Instructor: Marcel BoumansClass: Thursday, 9:3012:00am

Venue: H9-02

E-mail: [email protected] Hours: I would be happy to meet with you outside of class by appointment: please makean appointment either after class or e-mail.

Course Description

The term macroeconomics was invented only in the middle of the 20th century. In his well-known textbook Gregory Mankiw defines macroeconomics as the study of the economy as a

whole. Economists typically take that definition to refer to the analysis on a macro-level of

such aggregates as GDP, employment, unemployment, and inflation. Yet, this is not the onlyway to understand macroeconomics. Indeed, there are many different ways. In this course, we

will study the history of macroeconomics in the 20th century from the point of view of the

various ways of understanding the economy as a whole. Each of these ways of understandingaligned with variousoften newdevelopments in science and technology. The course is built

around the history of these developments. Each more or less chronologically ordered section

addresses one such a development: graphical analysis, analogue machines, mathematical models,

national accounts and input-output tables, econometrics, formalism, and the computer.In this course we analyze primary sources in historical context. In particular, we will examine the

historical economic articles in which these new developments were introduced, and, using

commentaries and secondary sources from the history of economics and the history of science,

we will develop an understanding of the scientific and economic situations to which these newdevelopments responded. The principal sections are:

1. The economy in graphs and diagrams

2. The economy as a mechanism or machine3. The economy in mathematical models

4. The economy in accounting and tables

5. The economy in macroeconometric models6. The economy in axioms and fixed points

7. The economy as an artificial world

AssessmentThere are three required graded parts to the course: Two written summaries and oral presentation

thereof (30%), final paper (40%) and oral exam (30%).

Reading

The principal readings for this course are the original texts. Readings are divided into Primary

Sources and Commentaries. On most topics, our major focus will be on the primary sources.


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List of Readings

0. Background and Overview

COMMENTARIESKevin D. Hoover. 2012. Microfoundational programs. In P.G. Duarte and G.L. Tadeu (eds.),

Microfoundations Reconsidered: The Relationship of Micro and Macroeconomics inHistorical Perspective (pp. 19-61). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Kevin D. Hoover. 2003. A history of postwar monetary and macroeconomics. In W.J. Samuels,

J.E. Biddle, and J.B. Davis,A Companion to the History of Economic Thought(pp. 411-

427). Oxford: Blackwell.Mary S. Morgan. 2003. Economics. In T.M. Porter and D. Ross (eds.), The Cambridge History of

Science, Vol. 7 The Modern Social Sciences (pp. 275-305). Cambridge University Press.

1. The economy in graphs and diagrams

PRIMARY SOURCES

Warren M. Persons. 1919. An index of general business conditions. The Review of Economic

Statistics 1(2), 111-139. (excerpt)

Arthur F. Burns and Wesley C. Mitchell. 1946.Measuring Business Cycles, Chapter 1 Workingplans and Chapter 2 Preliminary sketch of the statistical analysis (pp. 1-36). Cambridge,

MA: NBER.

COMMENTARIESJudy L. Klein. 1995. The method of diagrams and the black arts of inductive economics. In Ingrid

H. Rima (ed.),Measurement, Quantification and Economic Analysis. Numeracy in

Economics (pp. 98-139). London-New York: Routlegde.

Harro Maas and Mary S. Morgan. 2002. Timing history: The introduction of graphical analysis in19th century British economics.Revue dHistoire des Sciences Humaines, 2(7), 97-127.

Mary S. Morgan. 1990. Measuring and representing business cycles. The History of Econometric

Ideas (pp. 40-72). Cambridge University Press.

2. The economy as a mechanism or machine

PRIMARY SOURCESIrving Fisher 1925 (reprint of 1892).Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and

Prices. New Haven: Yale University Press. Part I: chapters 2, 3 and 4 (pp. 24-54) and part

II: chapter 3 (pp. 85-86).

Ragnar Frisch 1933. Propagation and impulse problems in dynamic economics. InEconomic

Essays in Honour of Gustav Cassel(pp. 171-205). London: Allen and Unwin.

COMMENTARIES

Harro Maas 2001. An instrument can make a science: Jevonss balancing acts in economics. In

J.L. Klein and M.S. Morgan (eds.), The Age of Economic Measurement(pp. 277-302).Durham: Duke University Press.

Peter Machamer 1998. Galileos machines, his mathematics, and his experiments. In P.

Machamer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galileo (pp. 53-79). CambridgeUniversity Press.

Mary S. Morgan 1999. Learning from models. In M.S. Morgan and M. Morrison,Models as

Mediators (pp. 347-388). Cambridge University Press.


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3. The economy in mathematical modelsPRIMARY SOURCES

Jan Tinbergen 1935. Suggestions on quantitative business cycle theory.Econometrica 3(3), 241-

243, 264-291 (excerpt).Paul A. Samuelson 1939. Interactions between the multiplier analysis and the principle of

acceleration. The Review of Economics and Statistics 21(2), 75-78.Robert M. Solow 1957. Technical change and the aggregate production function.Review ofEconomics and Statistics 39(3), 312-320.

COMMENTARIES

Marcel Boumans 2013. The regrettable loss of mathematical modeling in econometrics. In H.-K.Chao, S. Chen and R.L. Millstein (eds.),Mechanism and Causality in Biology andEconomics. Springer.

Allan Gibbard and Hal R. Varian 1978. Economic Models.Journal of Philosophy Vol. 75(11),

664-677.

Mary S. Morgan 2012. Modelling as a method of inquiry. In The World in the Model. HowEconomists Work and Think(1-37). Cambridge University Press.

4. The economy in accounting and tablesPRIMARY SOURCES

Simon Kuznets 1941. Concept of national income. InNational Income and Its Composition,

1919-1938, Volume I (pp. 3-60). New York: NBER.Richard Stone 1943. Two studies on income and expenditure in the United States, The

Economic Journal53(209), 60-75.

Wassily Leontief 1949. Recent developments in the study of interindustrial relationships.

American Economic Review 39(3), 211-225.COMMENTARIES

Martin C. Kohli 2001. Leontief and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1941-54: Developing a

framework for measurement. In J.L. Klein and M.S. Morgan (eds.), The Age of EconomicMeasurement(pp. 190-212). Durham: Duke University Press.

Flavio Comim 2001. Richard Stone and measurement criteria for national accounts. In J.L. Klein

and M.S. Morgan (eds.), The Age of Economic Measurement(pp. 213-234). Durham:Duke University Press.

Geoff Tily, John Maynard Keynes and the development of national accounts in Britain, 1895

1941.Review of Income and Wealth 55(2), 331-359.

5. The economy in macroeconometric modelsPRIMARY SOURCES

Jan Tinbergen 1939. Introduction. InBusiness Cycles in the United States of America, 1919-1932

(pp. 9-20). Geneva: League of Nations,.John Maynard Keynes 1939. Professor Tinbergens method. The Economic Journal49, 558-568.

Lawrence R. Klein 1946. Macroeconomics and the theory of rational behavior.Econometrica

14(2), 93-108.COMMENTARIES

David F. Hendry and Mary S. Morgan 1995. The Tinbergen Debate. In The Foundations of

Econometric Analysis (pp. 52-60). Cambridge University Press.Francisco Lou 2007. Challenging Keynes. In The Years of High Econometrics (pp. 184-212).

London and New York: Routledge.


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Mary S. Morgan 1990. Tinbergen and macrodynamic models. In The History of EconometricIdeas (pp. 101-130). Cambridge University Press.

6. The economy in axioms and fixed pointsPRIMARY SOURCES

John von Neumann 1945. A model of general economic equilibrium. The Review of EconomicStudies 13(1), 1-9.Kenneth J. Arrow and Gerard Debreu 1954. Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive

economy.Econometrica 22(3), 265-290.

Robert E. Lucas 1972. Expectations and the neutrality of money.Journal of Economic Theory 4,103-124.

COMMENTARIES

Till Dppe 2012. Arrow and Debreu de-homogenized.Journal of the History of Economic

Thought34(4), 491-514.

Nicola Giocoli 2003. Fixing the point. The contribution of early game theory to the tool box ofmodern economics.Journal of Economic Methodology 10(1), 1-39.

E. Roy Weintraub and Philip Mirowski 1994. The pure and the applied: Bourbakism comes to

mathematical economics. Science in Context7(2), 245-272.

7. The economy as an artificial world

PRIMARY SOURCESIrma Adelman and Frank L. Adelman 1959. The dynamic properties of the Klein-Goldberger

model.Econometrica 27(4), 596-625.

Guy H. Orcutt 1960. Simulation of economic systems. The American Economic Review 50(5),

893-907.Robert E. Lucas 1977. Understanding business cycles. In K. Brunner and A.H. Meltzer (eds),

Stabilization of the Domestic and International Economy (pp. 7-29). Amsterdam: North-

Holland.COMMENTARIES

Marcel Boumans 1997. Lucas and artificial worlds. In J.B. Davis (ed.),New Economics and Its

History (pp. 63-88). Durham: Duke University Press.Kevin Hoover, 1995. Facts and Artifacts: Calibration and the Empirical Assessment of Real-

Business-Cycle Models, Oxford Economic Papers.

Mary S. Morgan 2004. Simulation: The birth of a technology to create evidence in economics.

Revue dHistoire des Sciences 57(2), 339-375.

syllabus history of macroeconomics.pdf

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