ECONOMICS 160: MONEY AND BANKING

Course Description: Requisite: Econ 102 (Intermediate Macro). Principles of money and banking in U.S.; legal and institutional framework; Federal Reserve system; money supply process; instruments, effects, and practice of monetary policy.

Textbook: There is no required textbook, I have posted old lecture notes. The lectures will follow these closely. In addition, I will also be posting the weekly lecture set under Week 1, Week 2 etc. to be used in conjunction with the recorded lecture.

Zoom lectures. As you know, all classes are on-line for Summer. I will have live Zoom lectures at the official time of the class (all times are PST). These lectures will be recorded and posted on the website under the Week 1, Week 2 etc. sections on the course website. I will also have prerecorded versions of the lecture posted on the course website. The zoom lectures will make use of “share screen” function in which I call up the notes as a word file but also use a whiteboard that I have set up to give it more of an in-class feeling.

Classroom interaction during live zoom lectures: In doing the zoom lectures, I will be employing “mute all” so there is no background noise. Given the length of the lecture time, we will have a short break roughly in the middle of the live lecture. In a few cases, I may end early in order to take questions, but for the past part Q&A can be done in office hours.

EXAMS: There will be two exams. The approximate weighting of the exams is as follows:

First Exam (Thursday, Week 3, July 8)- 45%.

Second Exam (Thursday, Week 6, July 29)55%.

EXAMS: There will be two exams. The second exam is NOT cumulative. The exam times are still being planned, but they will be selected so as to accommodate time zone differences.

Exams will consist of multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks questions, and a small number of (probably only one) essay/problem questions. All exams will be open book and there will be different versions—I will let you know how the versions are assigned as we approach the exam week. The exams, of course, will be online. We will be using the “Quiz” feature of the CCLE website in which you to answer the questions on your computer itself, although essay/problem questions will require you to scan written answers into pdf file and then to drop/upload this file into a Quiz box. This will all be explained and we will do a test run prior to first exam so that you can become familiar with this format. We will proctor exams by having camera-on zoom sessions. Again, the specifics of this will be provided later as we approach the exam.

POLICY ON MISSED EXAMS: Exams must be taken at one of the scheduled times. Please note that department policy does not allow for any makeup exam to be administered if a student misses a midterm. If a student has a legitimate reason (by “legitimate reason” I mean something serious and unanticipated) and can provide acceptable documentation of such of an excuse, then additional weight will be placed on the last exam (I make an adjustment based on degree of difficulty if the final exam has a significantly different mean score). Any such documentation, such as a doctor’s note, should clearly state that the student was incapacitated and was therefore unable to take the exam or faced a serious impediment that prevented attendance at the exam. A student who misses an exam without a valid, verifiable excuse will receive a zero. If due to a verifiable emergency, a student misses the last exam, then that student will be required to take a makeup exam administered by the instructor at a time to be arranged. If a student misses all exams this student will receive an automatic grade of “F”.

READING ASSIGNMENTS