14.02: PRINCIPLES OF MACROECONOMICS
Course Syllabus: Fall 2002

DESCRIPTION:

This course will provide an overview of macroeconomic issues: the determination of output, employment, unemployment, interest rates, and inflation. Monetary and fiscal policies are discussed, as are the public debt and international economic issues. It introduces basic models of macroeconomics and illustrates principles with the experience of the United States and other economies.

LECTURER:

Professor Huntley Schaller / mailto:

HEAD TEACHING ASSISTANT:

Oscar Landerretche / mailto:

TEACHING ASSISTANTS:

Samer Haj-Yehia / mailto:
Indradeep Ghosh / mailto:
Veronica Rappoport / mailto:

Emailing the head TA or the TAs should be restricted to strictly administrative questions. Academic questions related to the material covered in class should be addressed in office hours. Any e-mail relating to the course must have "14.02" contained in the subject. Otherwise it will not be answered. The head TA will answer 14.02 emails from Monday to Saturday received before 10AM, without exception. The TAs will only be available during office hours and through email.

TWO ALTERNATIVE FORMATS: The course has two alternative formats. Both formats will cover the same topics, use the same textbook, and have the same required assignments, including quizzes and problem sets. As we receive more information on class enrollment, there may be changes in the number of sections and recitations.

  1. Lecture-Recitation: You attend one-hour lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, given by Professor Schaller, at 10AM, in E25-111. You also attend a one-hour recitation on Fridays, run by a TA. During Friday recitations-- which are not optional-- instructors will go over weekly problem sets, review materials from the lectures and, at times, introduce new materials. If you elect the Lecture-Recitation option, you may choose one of the following one-hour Friday recitations:
  • 10AM in8-105 with Samer Haj-Yehia
  • 11AM in8-105 with Samer Haj-Yehia
  • 12AM in8-105 with Samer Haj-Yehia
  • 1PM in8-105 with Samer Haj-Yehia
  • 2PM in8-105 with Samer Haj-Yehia
  1. All-Section: You attend one-hour sections on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, run by a TA. If you elect this option, you may choose of the following sections:
  • 9AM in 26-310 with Indradeep Ghosh
  • 11AM in 5-217 with Oscar Landerretche
  • 1PM in 4-153 with Indradeep Ghosh
  • 1PM in 5-217 with Veronica Rappoport
  • 2PM in 5-217 with Veronica Rappoport
  • 3PM in 5-217 with Veronica Rappoport

TAs will be assigned to sections and recitations before the first day of classes. As we receive more information on class enrollment, we may need to make changes in recitations or sections. (If any one section is too large, we may ask students to move to different times.)

CHOOSING AN OPTION: During the first two weeks of the semester, you may switch from Lecture to All-Section format, and from one recitation or section to another. It should be stressed that changing sections DOES NOT REQUIRE any paperwork with the Registrar or the Department of Economics. On September 19, the due date for Problem Set #1, you will submit your completed assignment indicating the recitation or section of your choice. Your submission will automatically register you in the chosen section or recitation. Thereafter, you can change recitations or sections only with faculty approval. In special cases where section or recitation enrollments are extremely unbalanced, we reserve the right to reassign students.

OFFICE HOURS: Office hours will open to students from all sections or recitation.

  • Indradeep Ghosh, Mondays 2PM at E51-90
  • Samer Haj-Yehia, Tuesdays 3PM at E52-262G
  • Veronica Rappoport, Wednesdays time to be announced, at E52-204
  • Oscar Landerretche, Wednesdays 12 PM at either E52-303 or E52-398

READINGS: The text for the course is the third edition of Macroeconomics, by Olivier Blanchard. It will be available at the Coop, and two copies of the textbook will be on reserve at Dewey Library.

Finally, it is also suggested that students get into the habit of browsing the daily newspaper The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times, or the weekly magazine The Economist at least a couple of times a month; all offer good (and well-written) coverage of economic events, and will provide some context for the course.

REQUIREMENTS: The course is based on three mid-term quizzes, and 8 weekly problem sets. The best 6 out of the 8 problem sets will count towards the final grade. This implies that you may miss only two problem sets for illness or some other very legitimate reason. Submitting all 8 problem sets is strongly encouraged and will increase your probability of getting a higher grade for the course.

Each of the quizzes is worth 25% of the final grade, the problem sets account for the remaining 25%. We will use our 14.02 webpage to distribute problem sets and solutions, past exams, and other announcements. We will also use the 14.02-student mailing list to distribute important announcements and room changes. To add yourself to this list, you need to send an email to the Head TA.

PROBLEM SETS AND QUIZZES: Problem sets are due on the due date before 4:30 pm by submitting them into the 14.02 box in E52-391. We will follow this policy strictly since we already allow you to drop 2 out of 8 problem sets. All problem sets must indicate clearly your full name, MIT ID and your section/recitation on the front page. Each problem set will be posted with its own front page. It is required of the students to staple the corresponding front page on each problem set they turn in. You are required to turn in a hard copy of your solutions. You may discuss ideas of how to answer questions with your friends, but you must write up answers on your own. Simply copying other person's work is considered cheating, and will be penalized accordingly.

The schedule for problem sets and quizzes is the following:

Problem Set # / Assigned / Due / Returned
1 / 9/12 / 9/19 / 9/27
2 / 9/19 / 9/26 / 10/14
3 / 10/10 / 10/17 / 10/25
4 / 10/17 / 10/24 / 11/1
5 / 10/24 / 10/31 / 11/8
6 / 11/14 / 11/21 / 11/27
7 / 11/21 / 11/27 / 12/9
8 / 12/5 / 12/11 / 12/18

Solutions to problem sets will be posted to the web after 4:30 pm on the day on which they are due.

Quiz #1: October 3, 7:30-9:30PM in Walker Gymnasium (50-340) and 4-270.

Quiz #2: November 7, 7:30-9:30PM in Walker Gymnasium (50-340) and 4-270.

Quiz #3: December 5, 7:30-9:30PM in Walker Gymnasium (50-340) and 4-270.

The students will be distributed between the two locations once we have a complete list.

While the quiz dates are firm, problem set dates are subject to change.

COURSE POLICY:

Collaboration on problem sets is permitted, but please do write up your answers separately. All assignments will be graded individually. On the other hand, collaboration during exams is strictly prohibited, and is considered a breach of academic honesty. We will follow the procedures in the latest MIT Guidelines on Academic Honesty, which are given in detail in MIT's Policies and Procedures.

If you are unhappy with your grade on a problem set, the TA of your section or recitation has the ultimate authority to change (or not to change) your score. The TA will not have the obligation to regrade a problem set that has been returned (or made available) to the student for more than 7 calendar days.

All questions about grading on the quizzes, however, must go through the head TA. A student who wants his/her quiz regraded will have to fill in a Request Form stating his/her reasons for challenging the grade. This applies also if the grader simply added up the points wrong. This form should be submitted, along with the test, to the 14.02-box in E52-391. The due date for regrades and corrections will be announced when the graded quizzes are made available but can be expected to be no longer than 7 calendar days. No later requests will be accepted under any circumstances. No test will be accepted for regrading without the Request Form. Our experience suggests that many tests are submitted for a regrade with no legitimate reason. In over half of those cases, regrading the entire quiz results in a lower score. Therefore, in order to encourage students to ask for a regrade only if they have a very clear and legitimate reason to do so, we reserve the right to regrade the entire test. As a general rule, you should know that if you have already been given some partial credit for a particular answer, the chances of obtaining more marks for that answer are extremely low.

In case of schedule conflict with any of the midterms, you must notify the Head TA at least 10 days in advance in order to take the midterm at an alternate time.

We have no desire to force students with medical problems to suffer through exams. If a student misses or is about to miss an exam but makes a credible showing of illness, we will waive or arrange a timely makeup exam. However, in some cases we may be unsure about the justification of the student's medical excuse. It is not our job to make medical diagnoses, and we have no write to pry into your private medical records. In such cases, we will ask the Chief of Student Health Services (3-4488) or a Dean in Counseling and Support Services (3-4861) to resolve the matter. Both offices require the student's prior approval before any information can be released.

We will make every reasonable accommodation for any student with a learning disability -- such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder -- or with another physical or mental disability. For example, when it is appropriate, we may give a disabled student a separate room to take a quiz, or an extension of time to finish the quiz. However, we cannot accommodate a disabled student who fails to give us timely notice of his or her special needs. In particular, a learning-disabled student who needs extra time to finish a quiz should present to the Head TA -- at least one week in advance of the scheduled quiz -- a letter from one of MIT's learning disability specialists certifying the student's disability and requesting accommodations. The contents of the letter will be treated confidentially. For more information, contact Barbara Roberts, MIT Coordinator of Disabilities Services (3-6110, mailto:%).

At the end of the semester, we will be reporting your internal grade to the MIT Registrar with the + and - modifiers, where appropriate. MIT's Committee on the Undergraduate Program permits such modifiers only for the letter grades A, B and C. It is our understanding that, in accordance with current MIT policy, the + or - modifiers will appear only in your internal end-of-term grade reports, but not in your official MIT transcript.

If you are an MIT freshman, we will evaluate your performance at the end of the fifth week or the beginning of the sixth week of the semester, based upon your grades in the first two or three problem sets. If your performance falls below the passing level, then we will send you a warning in writing (with a copy to your freshman advisor), and ask you to schedule a meeting immediately with your TA. At the end of the semester, we will be issuing internal letter grades for all freshman to the Registrar, including + and - modifiers, as described above