FE363  Macroeconomics

Basic information regarding the class:

Section 3011 - Time MW3,F34 (friday we may meet in either MI213 or SA101)
Place:  MI213, Lab SA101
Office:  Nimitz 078
Office number:  293-6888
Office Hours:  Monday and Wednesday 5th and 6th periods, Tuesday 9th period, and by appointment

Useful link for testing graphical understanding is thinkeconomics. Focus on the last two parts - AD/AS (for later chapters on economic fluctuations) and Policy Tools (for help on Fiscal and Monetary Policy changes).

Useful links for projects: Data and Information
http://www.economagic.com  for data from 1946 - present: GDP, Consumption, Labor force, Interest

        1.Economicsearch is a terrific place to start searching for economic information.  It includes
          links to data sources, private institutions, and government agencies.
        2.Economic Statistics Briefing Room is a friendly and fun interface providing the latest
          information on a wide variety of economic data, presented in both charts and tables.
        3.The Economic Report of the President is a searchable index containing all the reports and
          data published annually by the Council of Economic Advisors each January.
        4.Professor John A. Shaw has produced an up-to-date and attractive presentation of U.S.
          and international economic data.
        5.News releases from the Bureau of Labor Statistics discuss and report recent data on labor
          markets and consumer and producer price indexes, among other data. A broader set of
          data is available in searchable form from the BLS Data Bank .
        6.The Bureau of Economic Analysis home page contains press releases and recent data on
          Gross Domestic Product, Personal Income, and U.S. International Transactions, among
          other data series.
        7.U.S. Business Cycle Indicators contains a lot of common data series, along with graphs of
          the series.
        8.The National Bureau of Economic Research page contains some historical data (including
          the NBER's official business cycle dates) and a summary of some recent research.
        9.Federal Reserve Board Statistical Releases include recent data on interest rates, monetary
          and reserves aggregates, exchange rates, industrial production, capacity utilization, and
          commercial banking. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)minutes, including policy
          directives, are also available.
       10.A broad set of recent and historical macro data is available from the St. Louis Fed's
       Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).
       11.Purposes and Functions of the Federal Reserve System is a book-length overview of the
          Federal Reserve System, including its roles in monetary policy, financial supervision and
          regulation, and consumer affairs.
       12.You can use this link to connect to any of the 12 Regional Federal Reserve Banks.
       13.The Department of the Treasury reports to the penny the public debt of the United States,
          along with the interest cost of the debt and historical debt series back to 1791.
       14.The National Budget Simulator is a nifty site where you can run various policy experiments
          to check their effects on the Federal deficit.
       15.The U.S. Census Bureau publishes social, demographic, and economic information.
       16.You can obtain free on-line use of The New York Times and use their search engine to find
          recent articles published by The Times.
       17.The Washington Post is also available free on line.
       18.The Economist is probably the best weekly news magazine for economic analysis.
       19. An interactive tutorial Journal of Economic Education.
       20. International data are available linked from the Journal of Economic Education.
       21. Infoplease.com