Principles of Macroeconomics

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This introductory course is designed to introduce the student to the classic macroeconomic issues such as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, government budget deficits, exchange rates, and balance of payments problems. The course will provide tools of analysis that can be used to address these major macroeconomic issues and to study the impact on the economy of different policies, such as monetary and fiscal policies.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The course objective is to examine the following components of Macroeconomics: GDP, GNP, consumption, investment, government spending, exports, imports, transfer payments, taxes, business cycle, potential GDP, recession, general price level fluctuations, CPI, unemployment rate, natural level of unemployment, government fiscal policy and tools, monetary policy and tools, balance of payments, current account and capital account transactions, and exchange rates.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
• make more informed decisions as managers, investors, consumers and savers because they have become more aware of the environment they are operating in
• better understand the economic press to make those decisions
• be more aware of the controversies and the arguments surrounding the economic situation and
economic policies around the world.

MANDATORY TEXTBOOK:
ECONOMICS, N. Gregory Mankiw and Mark P. Taylor, CENGAGE Learning, (Third Edition).
ISBN-978-1-4080-9379-5