Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, fourth edition / Edition 4

by Lars Ljungqvist, Thomas J. Sargent

Overview

The substantially revised fourth edition of a widely used text, offering both an introduction to recursive methods and advanced material, mixing tools and sample applications.

Recursive methods provide powerful ways to pose and solve problems in dynamic macroeconomics. Recursive Macroeconomic Theory offers both an introduction to recursive methods and more advanced material. Only practice in solving diverse problems fully conveys the advantages of the recursive approach, so the book provides many applications. This fourth edition features two new chapters and substantial revisions to other chapters that demonstrate the power of recursive methods.
 
One new chapter applies the recursive approach to Ramsey taxation and sharply characterizes the time inconsistency of optimal policies. These insights are used in other chapters to simplify recursive formulations of Ramsey plans and credible government policies. The second new chapter explores the mechanics of matching models and identifies a common channel through which productivity shocks are magnified across a variety of matching models. Other chapters have been extended and refined. For example, there is new material on heterogeneous beliefs in both complete and incomplete markets models; and there is a deeper account of forces that shape aggregate labor supply elasticities in lifecycle models.
 
The book is suitable for first- and second-year graduate courses in macroeconomics. Most chapters conclude with exercises; many exercises and examples use Matlab or Python computer programming languages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262038669
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	09/11/2018
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	fourth edition
Pages:	1480
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lars Ljungqvist is Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Thomas J. Sargent, awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, is Berkley Professor of Economics and Business at New York University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Table of Contents

Recursive methods offer a powerful approach in dynamic macroeconomics. This book contains both an introduction to recursive tools, including standard applications such as asset pricing, and advanced material, including analyses of reputational mechanisms and contract design. The tools are presented with enough technical sophistication to get the reader started working on practical problems. When numerical simulations are called for, the book provides suggestions for how to proceed, as well as references for further reading.

The applications cover many substantive issues in macroeconomics, such as equilibrium asset prices, market incompleteness, wealth distribution, fiscal-monetary theories of inflation, government debt, optimal labor and capital taxation, time consistency and credible government policies, optimal social insurance, economic growth, and labor market dynamics.

What People are Saying About This

Endorsement

I have used this book repeatedly in teaching first year graduate macroeconomics and it is truly a tour-de-force. It presents the issues in a clear way, analyzes them with precise mathematics, and, importantly, has exciting problems that are just begging for smart students to solve them. Graduate students that carefully read this book and do every exercise can call themselves well-educated in modern macroeconomics. All serious practicing macroeconomists should have a copy of this book on their shelves, and its pages should be well-worn.

—Patrick Kehoe, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota

Patrick Kehoe

I have used this book repeatedly in teaching first year graduate macroeconomics and it is truly a tour-de-force. It presents the issues in a clear way, analyzes them with precise mathematics, and, importantly, has exciting problems that are just begging for smart students to solve them. Graduate students that carefully read this book and do every exercise can call themselves well-educated in modern macroeconomics. All serious practicing macroeconomists should have a copy of this book on their shelves, and its pages should be well-worn.

From the Publisher

Through a lucid exposition, a rigorous development of the tools, and a thorough analysis of each topic, this extraordinary textbook offers a state-of-the-art representation of the field. A must for every student with the ambition of becoming a scholar of macroeconomics, and for every teacher with the passion to guide students through this journey. This book makes you proud to be a macroeconomist.

—Gianluca Violante, Professor of Economics, Princeton University

This classic textbook has taught generations of students the tools of dynamic economics. At the same time, it has been continually updated to serve as a key reference manual for researchers. Once you have been 'Bellmanized' by this book, your life as an economist will never be the same.

—Monika Piazzesi, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics, Stanford University

Recursive Macroeconomic Theory thoroughly works through a wide variety of applications of recursive methods to the analysis of central themes in macroeconomics. As Alexander the Great is said to have always kept a copy of the Iliad under his pillow, I think the modern macroeconomist would do well to keep a copy of this excellent work close at hand.

—Fernando Alvarez, William C. Norby Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Robert Lucas

Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas Sargent's book provides comprehensive, how-to-do-it coverage of the methods of modern macroeconomic dynamics, illustrated with dozens of applications to real economic problems. It is both an encyclopedic, up-to-date reference and a practical teaching tool.