First year PhD Economics at BU


Remarks (Sep. 30, 2008)

Last modified: May 26, 2007

For those who come and will apply Ph.D. Course in Economics at BU...

What contents are covered in the course work?

Caution
The information on this page is of 2005-06 year, so some of the information are not applicable to the following years.
Especially, some of teaching staffs have changed/ will change, so materials and textbooks are possibly different. I have no responsibility to those differences.
Difficulty and comment are my subjective judgement.
This is NOT official page of BU econ department (of course!)
If you have any question about contents here, please e-mail me to "ishise AT bu DOT edu".


Core Course in BU

Summer: Summer Math Camp, Math Waiving Exam (optional)
Fall: Micro (EC701), Macro (EC702), Statistics (EC707), Math (EC705)
Spring: Micro (EC702), Macro (EC704), Econometrics I (EC708)
June : Qualifying exams (Micro and Macro)
Fall, 2nd year: Econometrics II (EC709)

Summer Math Camp

Instructor: Todd Sarver (4th year PhD student). Another person teaches summer 06.
(Aug 15-30: total 9 days, 18 (2 hours long) lectures)
Textbook: No offered textbook

Contents: Introductory real analysis and linear algebra, dynamics

Comment: For real analysis, lecture is more rigorous than Simon and Blume ("Mathematics for Economics"), but easier than Sundaram ("A First Course in Optimization Theory"). Linear algebra is much alike Simon and Blume. Linear Difference and Differential system and their stability are just introduction...


Math Waiving Exam

It seems to be based on past midterms/final of EC705. 3 hours long, full score is 100.
Decision (This is our case. It may not be applicable next year.)
Pass (60 or over): not to take EC705.
Marginal (50 to 60): either you do or don't take EC705.
Less than 50: take EC705
If you waive EC705, the first year adviser strongly recommends us to take another course.
It depends on your interest and is possible to take second year course. e.g., Real analysis (Math Dept), Game theory, Time series, Labor I, Development I, ...

Math for Econ (EC705)

Instructor: Albert Ma
(Note: I waived this class, so contents information are based on talking with classmates.)
Textbook: Michael Carter "Foundations of Mathematical Economics"

Contents: Introductory real analysis.

Comment: The course is based on the textbook.

Micro, fall semester (EC701)

Instructor: Michael Manove (in Fall 2005). (Fall 2006: taught by Jawwad Noor and Bart Lipman)
Textbook: Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green "Microeconomic Theory"

Contents: Preference, Consumer theory, Production, Uncertainty, Introduction of Game theory (Static and Dynamic Complete information games), General equilibrium (1st and 2nd Welfare Thm., Existence). (Ch.1-9,15,16 of MWG, but fair amount of contents are skipped.)

Comment: Contents are along with MWG, but Michael's style is very different. He emphasizes intuitive understanding. Problems and exams are something much alike puzzle game. I am now familiar with utility function such as U(x1,x2)=min(x1,x2)+max(x1,x2)...
I heard that the style of the class terned to more math rigorous one in Fall 2006.

Micro, spring semester (EC703)

1st half

Instructor: Dilip Mookherjee
Textbook: MWG

Contents: General Equilibrium (Existence, Local Uniqueness (Index Theorem), Global uniquness (Gross substitutability and Aggregate WARP), Core, Arrow-Debreu, Arrow security, Radner, Incomplete market) (Ch. 17, 18 and 19 of MWG.)

Comment: Basically, both teaching and Problem sets are alike MWG. He requires rigorous math proofs. However, Dilip explaines where we are intuitively and it helps us to understand mathematical things.

2nd half

Instructor: Andy Newman
Textbook: MWG

Contents: Rational Expectation Equilibrium (ch. 19.H), Games with incomplete information (Ch. 9.C), Adverse selection and signaling (ch. 13), contract (ch. 14)

Comment: Lecture closely follows MWG. Problem sets are also related to MWG, but not exactly those in the book. On the contrary, his exam problems are something fancy: needs much intuition and minimum calculation.

Macro, fall semester (EC702)

1st half

Instructor: Simon Gilchrist
Textbook: set of lecture notes written by Simon and Mark Gertler at NYU

Contents: Solow model and its empirical application, Dynamic Programming, Consumption (discrete infinite horizon problem, Permanent Income Hypothesis, equity premium), production (q-theory), Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans, Basic RBC

Comment: Simon's lecture and their lecture notes are easy to understand. It is much easier than Ljungqvist and Sargent but bit harder than Romer.

2nd half

Instructor: Adrien Verdelhan
Textbook: Walsh "Monetary Theory and Policy", Stokey and Lucas with Prescott "Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics"

Contents: Stylized facts on Monetary economics, Cash-in-advance, Baumol=Tobin=Alvarez model, Money in Utility function, Sticky price, New Keynesian, Optimal Monetary Policy (Walsh Ch. 1-3, 5, 8, 11, Lucas (2000 Econometrica), Alvarez, Lucas and Weber (2001 AER))

Comment: Difficulty is basically as much as contents of Walsh, but some of problem sets are due to SLP (though he does not cover anything in class...). We had problem sets by bi-weekly.

Macro, Spring semester (EC704)

1st half

Instructor: Francois Gourio
Textbook: Ljungqvist and Sargent "Recursive macroeconomic theory (2nd ed.)", Prescott (2002, AER)

Contents: DP, Markov process, Consumption, Equilibrium, PIH, incomplete market, optimal tax (Ch.1-4,8,10,11,16,17 of LS), implication of distortionary taxes (Prescott).

Comment: He provides amazing handouts. The explanation in notes are much clearer than LS and also includes empirical implications and basic results of applications. Weekly problem sets are really useful but actually heavy...

2nd half

Instructor: Robert King
Textbook: No required textbooks. Lectures are based on original articles.

Contents: Continuous-time Solow (Solow (1956, QJE)), Continuous-time Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans (Cass (1965, RES), Cass (1966, EMA)), Endogenous growth (Rebelo (1991, JPE), Romer (1986, 1990 JPE), Grossman and Helpman (1991, RES)), State dependent pricing (Dotsey and King (2005, JME)), Optimal tax (Atkeson, Chari and Kehoe (1999, MN FED QR))

Comment: The lecture is based on original paper and lecture note.

Statistics for Economics (EC707) (Fall)

Instructor: Guido Kuersteiner. Guido moves to another university, so he will not teach this course fall 06.
Textbook: Casella and Berger "Statistical Inference" and his lecture note on asymptotic theory

Contents: Basic Probability (without measure theory), distributions, transformation of random variables, Properties of Normal distribution, inference (finite sample), asymptotic theory

Comment: His teaching is excellent! Contents and problem sets are along with textbook, but his teaching is much easy to understand. He assings problem sets weekly, and some of them are quite hard.

Econometrics I (EC708) (Spring)

Instructor: Pierre Perron
Textbook: His lecture note (They are partially similar to Ruud "An Introduction to Classical Econometric Theory" and Davidson and MacKinnon "Econometric Theory and Methods")

Contents: Linear projection and OLS, restricted regression, Large sample OLS, GIVE, Non-spherical error, GLS and SUR, ML, Trinity of Tests, Unit root and Cointegration, GMM

Comment: As usual econometrics, material contains rigorous math, but his explanation is intuitive.

Qualify Exams

Micro and Macro, on early June.
Decision is said to be independently processed in Micro and Macro. (Possible) make-up(s) are on early September. The third and the last chance is on June next year.
The criteria is not revealed. Average result of the first trial (June exams) of past few years is
Pass both micro and macro: about 1/3
Pass one of the two: about 1/3
Fail both: about 1/3

Comment: The most parts of the exams are based on the materials covered in the classes, so their difficulty is similar to that of mid-terms and finals. Good preparation is to review the materials in the class (including lecture notes, problem sets, and exams) and to practice past qualify exams.



Econometrics II (EC709) (Fall, 2nd year)

Instructor: Marc Rysman
Textbook: Wooldridge "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," Cameron and Trivedi "Microeconometrics: Methods and Applications," Rust (1987, EMA), Wolpin (1984, RES)

Contents: Simultaneous equations, Linear panel, Limited dependents, Sample selection, Treatment effects, Count, Hazard, Duration (Wooldridge, Ch. 7-11, 15-20), Bootstrap, Non-parametric, Simulation method (CT, Ch. 9, 11, 12), Structual dynamic models (Rust, Wolpin)

Comment: No math detail, many example and applications, and intuitive explanations.




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