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Bringing Undergraduate Macroeconomics Teaching Up to Date

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Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy

Abstract

I have taught a core graduate macroeconomics course ever since I became an academic in 1990, and I often start it by saying that the subject matter is pretty similar to undergraduate macroeconomics: what determines inflation, output, the exchange rate, etc. The difference, I suggest, is that the macroeconomics you learn as a graduate student is only slightly out of date, whereas the macroeconomics taught at undergraduate level is 30 years out of date. I say this in a joking way, but unfortunately the statement contains more than a grain of truth.

My thanks to Giuseppe Fontana, John Maloney, Mark Setterfield, David Vines, and John Vickers for helpful comments on an earlier draft, but all probably disagree with at least some of the views expressed here.

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© 2009 Simon Wren-Lewis

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Wren-Lewis, S. (2009). Bringing Undergraduate Macroeconomics Teaching Up to Date. In: Fontana, G., Setterfield, M. (eds) Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-29166-9_3

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