Economic Resources

This page contains links and references to materials I find interesting and/or useful.  Hopefully it's useful to others as well.

Grad School Prep Material

This is a collection of material helpful for those interested in Masters and PhD programs in Economics.  The biggest challenge most students face is the mathematical hurdle due to the huge divide between undergraduate and graduate economics.  Here are some good sites I've found to help you transition. I recommend those aiming for PhD programs, work weekly or monthly through as much of this material as you can during your entire senior year of undergraduate. It will make your transition much smoother.

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• Essential Micro plus Math Essentials - this is from Prof. John Riley at UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles.  He also has a book called Essential Microeconomics (Cambridge publishing website).

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DSGE Modelling Resources

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• IRIS Macroeconomic Modelling - "IRIS is a free, open-source toolbox for macroeconomic modeling and forecasting in Matlab" (from their website).  I haven't tried it yet.

• MATLAB - MATLB's own reference site for DSGE modelling. 

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• Dynare - Dynare is free, open-source software/toolbox for macroeconomic modelling and Bayesian estimating DSGE models. It's become extremely popular in the academic macroeconomic world.

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• Vermandel Code Collection - Matlab and Dynare codes from Prof. Gauthier Vermandel.  He has all kinds of cool stuff on this site. He has tons of code and also materials from courses he teaches on DSGE modelling and using R and MATLAB in Finance.  All very well presented and usable.

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My Dynare Code Project

I am developing a collection of basic economic models in Dynare.  You must have MATLAB and Dynare installed to run these.  I'll slowly add additional documentation in Word or PDF too.

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Deterministic Solow-Swan Model Examples

I have a temporary and permanent shock to depreciation, technology-productivity, and to the marginal propensity to consume.

In each case I wrote a simple master code in Matlab (.m files)  that calls and runs two pieces of Dynare code (.mod files) and then graphs the output in one graph. So download all three files, save them in the same folder and then run the Master file.

• Shock to depreciation

  • Matlab code:​  Master_Solow_Delta.m

  • Dynare code:  solow_perm_delta.mod and  solow_temp_delta.mod

  • Output graphs: SolowPermTempDelta.png

• Shock to technology-productivity

  • Matlab code:​  Master_Solow_Tech.m

  • Dynare code:  solow_perm_tech.mod and solow_temp_tech.mod 

  • Output graphs: SolowTechShocks.png

• Shock to marginal propensity to consume

  • Matlab code:​ Master_Solow_MPS.m

  • Dynare code perm shock: solow_perm_mps.mod and solow_temp_mps.mod

  • Output graphs:  SolowMPSShocks.png

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Models in Vegh's "Open Economy Macroeconomics in Developing Countries" textbook

Chapter 1 Basic Intertemporal Model

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Cool Sites Worth following

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Quantitative Economics Lecture - Project of Thomas J. Sargent and John Stachurski. They cover a range of topics and have sections on Python and tons of code in Python.

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Dynare - A very user friendly program run in Matlab (or there's a standalone version on their site but I never tried it).  It's great for doing DSGE simulations in Macroeconomics.  It can also simulate deterministic models and allow movement across steady states in nonstochastic models.

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Macroeconomic Model Comparison Initiative (MMCI)

This is an initiative to develop a huge database of macroeconomic models, all in Dynare and in one location manageable through their GUI or each can be looked at individually.  But, using their GUI, you can do things like compare the size of fiscal multipliers across multiple models from academic models to larger scale models at the US FEB or the IMF.

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Economists Worth Following

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• Thomas J. Sargent

• Benjamin Moll (Princeton) - heterogeneous agent macro, continuous time work

• Nobuhiro Kiyotaki (Princeton) - macro, monetary, credit

• John Moore (Edinburgh) - macro, monetary, credit

• Ricardo Reis (LSE) - macro research, lots of work with Mankiw on information problems

• Luigi Bocola (Stanford) - Open Economy Macro and crises, sovereign debt

• Carlos Vegh - open economy macro

• Martin Uribe (Columbia) - open economy macro

• Guillermo Calvo (Columbia) - open economy macro

• Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard) - open economy macro

• John Cochrane (Hoover/Chicago) - macro finance

• Greg Kaplan (U of Chicago) 

• Mark Aguiar (Princeton)

• Gianluca Violante (Princeton) - Heterogeneous Agent Macro Models