Courses

The main objectives of this course are to introduce students to basic econometrics techniques and to prepare them for their own applied work. It deals with applications of statistical methods to estimate economically meaningful relationships and testing various hypotheses about the data. In this course the students learn in details multiple regression analysis of cross section data (single-equation linear models and OLS Estimation, heteroscedasticity, GLS, system estimation by instrumental variables).

The course demonstrates that contrary to claims of some economists, money is not clearly and universally defined, and there is no consensus between economists as to the definition of money and its role in the economy. The students will learn how our ideas about evolution of money and its functions. They will study in details main assumptions of the quantity theory of money, and will understand for sure when more money means higher prices, and when this does not hold. The students will discuss theories of money by Wicksell and Marx, and will see how their views influenced those of Keynes and numerous modern schools of economic thought. The most important result of this course for the students is that they will understand how different approaches towards defining the most important function of money result in different views about possibility and desirability to pursue some sort of monetary policy.

The main objective of this course is to introduce students to basic econometrics techniques of working with data that have the time dimension and to prepare them for their own applied work using this type of data. In this course students will learn time series analysis (unit root tests, ARIMA models, vector autoregression, cointegration (Engle-Granger procedure and Johansen methodology)) and basic panel data models. While studying different statistical methods, students apply them to real data in EViews and Stata software packages.