Current course number: Economics 355 (next offering: Fall 2006)
Current catalogue description: What money has been and is, including study of the U.S. institutions which supply and control it; the bond market and term structure of interest rates; asset demand for domestic and foreign currencies; money in monetarist, Keynesian, and rational expectations approaches to macroeconomics.
Course
summary: This
course focuses on fundamental questions about money--what it is and has been,
the nature and stability of demand for it, the control of its supply, and the
effects of monetary policy on prices and output. The theory we learn has
wide application to countries everywhere in the world, but when we consider
examples and institutions (commercial and central banks, the bond market, other
financial markets) we will most often focus on the United States. We will
examine in detail all of the following:
1. The evolution of money from specie to
modern fiat money and the characteristics of various kinds of money.
2. Modern theories of the bond market, with
special emphasis on the term structure of interest rates, and on asset demand,
which helps us to understand the holding of both domestic and foreign
currencies.
3. The role of money in monetarist,
Keynesian, and rational expectations approaches to macroeconomics.
4. The U.S. institutional structure--the
Federal Reserve system, commercial banking, and financial markets--within which
money and near-money are supplied and in which monetary policy is determined.
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This plaque is testimony to the power of gold in an earlier era. |
This exhibit in Icy Straits Point, Alaska shows how varied money can be. |
Top Banner: U.S. President Andrew Jackson gazes from this replica of the new $20 bill at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D.C.
Prerequisites for the course are Economics 241,242, and 243 (prior to Fall 2005, Economics 41,42, and 43); Economics 241 may be taken concurrently.
Click here for pre-registration information for this course for the Fall term of 2006.
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