Short-term macroeconomics for developing countries

General and specific objectives of the class
The general objective of this course is to address various contemporary macroeconomic issues by placing them in the specific context of developing and/or emerging economies. Most developing and/or emerging economies are strongly dependent on imports, face limited capacities for financing public policies by taxes, feature weak financial development and heavy dependence on external financing and sometimes public aid, and generally have highly unstable currencies. The first specific objective is to provide students in development economics with a toolkit to understanding the relationship between the different macro-financial balances (prices, exchange rates, balance of payments, State budget, savings-investment) in the particular contexts of developing and emerging countries. The second objective is to give keys to understanding what are reasonable macroeconomic policies in developing countries (inflation targeting and currency boards, investment in tax capacities, management of external debt, restrictions on capital movements speculative) and how the definition of good macro-policies depends on each country's characteristics. The third objective is to provide insights for understanding the mechanisms leading to the major types of macroeconomic crisis hitting developing countries and to the right political responses (hyperinflation, cumulative indebtedness in foreign currency and with foreign creditors and insolvency, external deficit and currency crisis). At the end of the class, the final objective is for students to be able to write a diagnostic of a developing or emerging country's macroeconomic conditions and draw policy advice based on it.

Enseignant responsable: Eric ROUGIER