Luke Stein — Stanford Econ. 210

Autumn 2009

Instructors: Manuel Amador and Nir Jaimovich

Course resources

• Syllabus

• Texts

  • N. Stokey, R. Lucas, E. Prescott: Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics

  • L. Ljungqvist, T. Sargent: Recursive Macroeconomic Theory

• Course website [Stanford access only]

Section notes

The full notes include

1. Taxonomy of economic models, utility functions, sequence problems, dynamic programming, mathematics reminders

2. Dynamic programming algorithms, steady-state analysis and dynamics, competitive equilibrium, constant returns-to-scale production

3. Comparing planner problems with competitive equilibria, Pareto optimality, log-linearization, balanced growth

4. Continuous-time optimization, log-linearizing the neoclassical growth model

5. Optimal taxation, uncertainty

6. Risk-sharing properties of competitive markets, perfect and imperfect insurance

7. Asset pricing with complete markets, incomplete markets

8. General equilibrium in incomplete markets, overview

Other references

• “Cheatsheet” summary

• I reccomend the treatment in J. Stachurski: Economic Dynamics: Theory and Computation, which also includes great, Python-based programming examples; additional notes and code samples are available on his homepage

• Dirk Krueger has in the past distributed a useful set of notes in the form of a book manuscript entitled Macroeconomic Theory, but his teaching website now asks prospective users to e-mail him for a copy

Selected student feedback

Stanford Economics Department Outstanding Teaching Assistant award

“Easily the best TA I've EVER had! Section was absolutely fundamental to the course & I understood more from attending 2 hours of section than a week of classes. Class notes were particularly well-organized/useful.”

“By far the friendliest and most approachable instructor. Very generously gave lots of his time to office hours and other out-of-class meetings.”

“Luke was an excellent section leader. He is the best teaching assistant I have had at Stanford. He will make a great professor!”

“Luke both understood the material and presented in a way such that we could understand it. Out of the professors and TAs I had this semester, I learned the most from Luke — he's just awesome and should be professor!”

“He is the best lecturer ever; very approachable.”

“Luke was an outstanding TA and helped the class immensely. The notes he prepared for section were very useful and really clarified the material. His explanations were perfectly suited to our preparation.”

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