Macroeconomics for a Sustainable Planet

Unemployment. Inflation. Protectionism. Trade barriers. Fiscal deficit. These are not just terms in an economics textbook or in newspaper headlines. These real-life challenges carry societal and environmental implications for billions of people around the world. How do we balance the pursuit of economic growth with the right of all people to thrive on an increasingly fragile planet? To answer this question, we must reframe our understanding of macroeconomics in the context of a highly interdependent world.

Led by two leading economic minds – Columbia University Professor and Senior UN Advisor Jeffrey Sachs and former Chilean Minister of Finance Felipe Larraín – this massive open online course explores traditional macroeconomic principles and tools, updated for the age of sustainable development and the current wave of globalization. Is a thriving global economy possible in an equitable and environmentally thoughtful way? Find out here.

This course is for:

• Graduate students and advanced undergraduate students studying international development, economics and/or sustainable development
• Economists interested in the balance of macroeconomic principles and ESG (environmental, societal and governance) criteria
• Sustainable development practitioners – as well as private-sector actors, such as those who work in the financial sector – who need to understand the economic models that support and depend on sustainable development

Module 1: Introduction to Macroeconomics

• Introduction
• Macroeconomic Pathologies
• 21st Century Perspectives on Macroeconomics
• International Comparisons of Income
• GDP & Well-Being

Module 2A: Output Determination & Employment

• Full-Employment Economy
• Deriving GDP | Part I
• Deriving GDP | Part II
• Labor & Saving | Part I
• Labor & Saving | Part II

Module 2B: Output Determination & Employment

• Economic Growth
• Partial-Employment Economy
• Business Cycles
• Aggregate Demand Management
• Problems with Aggregate Demand Management
• Output Determination in the IS-LM Model

Module 3: Labor Markets

• Labor Markets, Concepts, Definitions & Groups
• Labor Market Institutions: Minimum Wages, Unionization & Contracts
• Costs of Unemployment, Digitization of Labor, Informality & Underemployment

Module 4: Money & Central Banking

• Money vs. Barter: History & Concepts
• Money Demand
• Money Supply: the Role of the Central Bank
• The Central Bank: New Approaches to Monetary Policy

Module 5: Exchange Rates

• Exchange Rate Arrangements
• PPP & Interest Rate Arbitrage
• The Real Exchange Rate & the Role of Non-Traded Goods
• Monetary Policy: Fixed & Floating Exchange Rates
• Currency Crises

Module 6: Financial Markets & Crises

• Bank Runs & Panics | Part I
• Bank Runs & Panics | Part II
• Preventing Bank Runs
• Bubbles & Crashes
• Managing Insolvencies
• When Governments Go Broke

Module 7: Inflation, Unemployment & Stabilization

• Inflation, the Fiscal Deficit & Seigniorage
• The Costs of Inflation
• Inflation, Unemployment & the Phillips Curve
• Stabilization Themes

Module 8: Consumption, Saving & Investment

• Consumption, Saving & the Intertemporal Budget Constraint
• Permanent Income Consumption Theory
• Life Cycle Model of Consumption & Saving
• Investment
• Basic Theory of Business Investment

Module 9: Fiscal Policy and Institutions

• Budget, Public Revenues & Expenditures
• Saving, Investment, the Fiscal Deficit & Management of Public Debt
• Interactions Between Public & Private Sectors
• Fiscal Institutions & Policies

Module 10: Open Economy Issues

• Aggregate Demand in an Open Economy
• Aggregate Demand with a Flexible Exchange Rate
• Aggregate Demand with a Fixed Exchange Rate
• The Current Account & External Indebtedness
• The Intertemporal Budget Constraint of a Country

Module 11: Economic Growth

• Economic Growth in History, Patterns & Sectors
• Sources of Economic Growth
• Solow’s Growth Convergence Model
• Growth & Inequality
• Growth Traps

Module 12: Globalization

• What is Globalization?
• Development of the Global Economic System
• Globalization of Population Systems
• Crises of Poverty & Inequality
• Challenge of Sustainable Development