Reading List for Intermediate Macroeconomics
Lucas, “Understanding Business Cycles,” CR 1977. (This paper is entirely literary and sets out many of the stylized facts in clear English.)
Cochrane, “Shocks,” CR 1994. What are the shocks that drive economic fluctuations? (The paper is about 70% chat and 30% math. You can probably follow the chat even if you skip the math.)
Woodford, “Revolution and Evolution in Twentieth-Century Macroeconomics,” 1999. (This is one of the best short papers on the history of macroeconomic thought. It usefully distinguishes the Monetarists from the New Classicals from the RBC guys)
Sims, “Macroeconomics and Reality,” ECMA 1981. This paper introduces the SVAR framework and is about 50% math, 50% talk. You can pick up many of the main substantive points even without the math.
Eichenbaum, “Some Thoughts on Practical Stabilization Policy,” AER PP 1997.
Gordon, “The History of the Phillips Curve,” 2009 WP, has a nice summary.
Leeper, “Monetary Science, Fiscal Alchemy,” Jackson Hole 2010.
Reading List for Money & Banking
“The U.S. Financial Crisis, 1992–2008”(A multimedia timeline that tracks the 2008 financial crisis, from buildup to aftermath.)
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, “The Rock-Star Appeal of Modern Monetary Theory,” Nation, May 8, 2017. (Breif introduction of MMT)
Binyamin Appelbaum, “America’s Most Profitable Export: Money,” New York Times, March 9, 2019. (A short exploration of the role of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency and the effects of that status.)
Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Shaylim Castro, and Isaac Urrutia, “Venezuelans Rush to Shops Before Monetary Overhaul,” Reuters, updated August 22, 2018. (A photo essay that illustrates the effects of hyperinflation)
James Surowiecki, “A Brief History of Money,” IEEE Spectrum, May 30, 2012. (A detailed look at what money is and how it works, illustrated by historical examples.)
Harvard Business School Working Paper Summaries: Banks and Banking
Ben Bernanke’s Blog(Articles about monetary policy written by previous Fed’s chair)
Friedman, “The Role of Monetary Policy,” 1968.
Youtube Videos
Supplement materials in plain English for practical application.
Real Economy
Phillips curve by Khan Academy
Financial Markets
Explainers: Basic Financial Terms (Playlist) by the CISI
How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio
But how does bitcoin actually work? by 3Blue1Brown
What Would Negative Interest Rates Mean For Consumers And The Economy? by CNBC
Managing Money in a Zero Interest Rate Environment by Bridgewater Associates
Banks and Central Banks
Banking explained (Basics) by Audi Bank
The Fed in Five | A History of the Federal Reserve by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Federal Reserve in Plain English by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Explainers | European Banking System (Playlist) by European Central Bank
Macroeconomics Database
U.S. macroeconomic data by American Economic Association
What Is FRED database? by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
World Economic Database by DB.NOMICS
Penn World Table by Robert C. Feenstra, Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer
Our World in Data by Global Change Data Lab
Total Economy Database (TED) by the Conference Board
Google Dataset Search by Google
