Introduction to Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomics

Undergraduate / Graduate

This class is an introduction to macroeconomics with heterogeneous households. We will study consumption-savings problems, income dynamics, wealth inequality in partial and general equilibrium, and the effects of fiscal and monetary policy in the presence of household inequality. The class will make use of theoretical analysis, empirical analysis and computational methods. Material will be presented in both discrete and continuous time. Students will analyze micro-level data on wealth, income and consumption, and will learn how to write code to solve heterogeneous agent models on a computer. Familiarity with a statisical package such as R or Stata, and a programming language such as Matlab, Python, Julia, Fortran or C is highly recommended.