Essay Assignment for ECON30120 (Advanced Macroeconomics).
You are asked to write 5 short essays and submit them in either Microsoft Word or PDF
format.
My expectation is that the essays should not be longer than 750 words each. Essays
under this limit may still score well. More words don’t necessarily mean better words. Those
who submit essays that go well over the 750-word recommended limit will have their grades
reduced even if the essays are well-researched. I’ve decided to be more specific about this
to avoid confusion. Word counts that are above 10% of the recommended limit of 750 will be
penalised as follows. • Over by between 10% and 20%: Grade awarded to be reduced by
one grade point, i.e. from A+ to A. • Over by between 20% and 30%: Grade awarded to be
reduced by two grade points, i.e. from A+ to A. • Over by 30% or more: Grade awarded to be
reduced by three grade points, i.e. from A+ to B+.
Guidelines on Essays
You will be asked to submit five essays. There will be 3 lists of essays corresponding to the
three sections of the class.
List 1. You should do one or two essays from List 1.
1. How do the public’s inflation expectations and the central bank’s inflation target combine
to influence actual inflation and output in the IS-MP-PC model? How does the public form
inflation expectations? Discuss how inflation expectations have evolved in the Euro area
over the past year.
2. Use the IS-MP-PC model to discuss the arguments for and against having a “tough”
central bank that raises interest rates aggressively when inflation increases and has a highly
credible commitment to low inflation. How can central banks achieve credibility?
3. Discuss the Taylor principle and the role it plays in the IS-MP-PC model. Discuss a
historical example when the Taylor principle was not followed. Are the ECB’s latest monetary
policy decisions in line with the Taylor principle?
4. Use the IS-MP-PC model to explain how an economy can end up in a liquidity trap. What
policy measures can be taken to get out of a liquidity trap?
List 2. You should do one or two essays from List 2:
5. Robert Shiller argued that stock prices were too volatile to be characterised by rational
expectations. What reasoning did he use and what evidence did he present?
6. Discuss the theory and evidence on short-run and long-run predictability of stock prices.
What does the evidence suggest for the factors determining stock prices?
7. What assumptions were required to derive the Rational Expectations Permanent Income
Hypothesis (RE-PIH) model? How well does the model perform in practice and what might
account for any weaknesses?
8. Discuss the theory and evidence relating to Ricardian equivalence.
9. What is the Trilemma and what are its implications for the relationship between monetary
policy and exchange rate regimes?
10. What are the implications of Uncovered Interest Parity for the behaviour of variable
exchange rates under free movement of capital under rational expectations?
List 3. You should do one or two essays from list 3:
11. What is growth accounting and how are growth accounting calculations done? Provide
some studies that perform growth accounting exercises. What are some of the conclusions
of these studies?
12. Describe the convergence dynamics in the Solow model and discuss its predictions for
the contributions of TFP growth and capital deepening on a steady growth path.
13. Discuss Robert Gordon’s paper on the history and future of technological innovation.
What does it suggest is the likely pattern for future economic growth? Can you suggest
some counterarguments to Gordon’s position?
14. How does Paul Romer’s model explain improvements in Total Factor Productivity? What
does his model suggest for government policies to boost economic growth?
15. Discuss the relationship between institutions and output per worker. How did Hall and
Jones go about assessing this relationship and what did they find?
FAQ on the Assignment (Please Read This Carefully Before Emailing Me With
Questions)
Grading Approach
• You should look at the UCD guidance at the back of this document as to what constitutes
work that should get an A, a B and so on. I will use this guidance in grading the essays.
• Note that A means “excellent”. You can do a “very good” essay and still get a B.
• The School of Economics policy on late submissions will be applied to anyone sending me
essays late. You can find this policy on Brightspace.
Word Count
• 750 words is simply a recommendation for the maximum number of words. If you feel you
have explained the topic well in fewer words, that is absolutely fine.
• If you write the wording of the essay topic at the start of the essay, I won’t count that
towards your word count.
• If your references are all at the end of essay, then I will not count these references in the
word count. If you intersperse them as footnotes, then they will count towards the word
count. Words used to mention citations (Friedman (1968) said …) will of course count
towards the word count.
Submission Issues
• Submit via Brightspace.
• I would prefer if you submitted the five essays in a single document.
• If you submit an essay but then want to submit a new better version of it, you can do this.
Just name the second submission something like “Final One” or “Grade this One.” Either
way, I will grade the most recent submission.
Plagiarism
• Submissions will be processed by the “originality checker” in Brightspace. After you submit,
you will get a “similarity score” for your essays.
• The lecture notes for previous versions of this module are available publicly on Karl
Whelan’s
website, so the checker may find multiple overlaps with this material. That is fine, so don’t
worry about it. However, my experience with this is that essays with very high similarity
scores (i.e. above 50%) do tend to read a bit like they just cut and pasted lots of material. If
you receive a high similarly score, you are free to reword and re-submit your essays.
• Be very careful about working with others to share material for essays. This may be picked
up by the originality checker as possible plagiarism. Also, even with written exams, I
regularly see specific (often new) incorrect points made by many different students. It’s pretty
clear what’s happened is someone has written a bad answer and then shared this with lots
of others. It’s really not hard to find the material from the lecture notes to study and write
these essays yourself so just do that.
Explaining Yourself
• Be careful about grammar and explain yourself clearly. Sometime things that are poorly
phrased or formatted can be difficult to understand. I’m trying to assess whether you
understand the material and if I don’t understand you, then that doesn’t help with that
assessment. Consider reading your essay out loud and seeing if it sounds ok and makes
sense.
• Short paragraphs with each paragraph making a specific point are much easier to read and
grade than essays with really long paragraphs that contain lots of different points.
Citing and Referencing Material
• I don’t care about the styles you use for citing and referencing material. I recommend that
you cite articles in the text as Smith (2017) or (Smith, 2017) and add the full reference at
the end. But you can also add full references in footnotes. The key is to be CONSISTENT.
Pick one style and use it throughout. It can be Harvard style or any other.
• I expect you to study the slides and Karl Whelan’s lecture notes, but do not cite Whelan
(2022) or Peia (2022), when all you are doing is describing the lecture material provided.
If you cite other works/articles/blogs from Karl Whelan or myself then those should be
properly cited.
• While just referring to the lecture notes is enough to pass, but students who aim for an A
grade should provide some external references.
• Learn how to use Word’s screen clipping feature. Insert –but Screenshot – Screen
Clipping. This allows you to include charts or equations from the lecture notes or
readings in your essay. This can be a good way to show you understand key points and
they don’t count towards your word count.
• If you’ve written a whole essay without consulting the lecture notes (or barely reading
them) and you think you’ve done a good job, you are almost certainly wrong. In
particular, recycling stuff from other modules almost always goes really badly. Also
consider whether the alternative sources you are using are reputable. I don’t want cites
from Wikipedia or Khan Academy or Investopedia or TheBalance.com or similar sites.