MacroJournal—Turning Students into Practitioners

Abstract

Incorporating currents events into an economics curriculum is a goal of many dedicated instructors. The benefits of doing so are obvious. Unfortunately, the costs associated with implementation are nontrivial. In the following, the authors introduce an experiential writing assignment, called the MacroJournal, which streamlines the process of incorporating current events into a macroeconomics course. The costs for the instructor are mitigated by a repeated structure of questioning and a well-defined grading rubric. By completing the assignment, students have an opportunity to become practitioners and link current events to classroom theory.

Keywords:

• active learning
• current events
• economic education
• macroeconomics

Keywords:

• JEL codes A22
• E01
• E66

Notes

1. This does not imply the MJ is useful only for future macroeconomists. The skills used in this exercise are applicable to a broad array of careers.

2. FOMC Press Release 1/25/12 http://federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20120125c.htm (accessed January 26, 2013).

3. In essence, this assignment thrusts our students in the very real challenge of nowcasting. See Giannone, Reichlin, and Small (2008) for details.

4. As of the time of writing this article, economic calendars are freely available from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, as well as other publishers.

5. In fact, Montgomery et al. (1998) documented the empirical ability of initial claims to improve the forecasting power of a model of the U.S. unemployment rate.

6. For example, we have successfully implemented the MJ in introductory economics and advanced macro-economics courses. These have included different student ability levels such as our honors courses, as well as varying stages in their academic career (freshmen to seniors). Additionally, we have found success in shorter five-week summer semesters. The exercise has been used in class sizes as small as 10 students and larger than 250 students.

7. If the instructor does not have an LMS available, we suggest having the students turn in their opinions via Scantron and the justification in essay form.

8. Examples can be found at www.unc.edu/~maguilar/MJDescription.htm.

9. The aforementioned poll was conducted at the culmination of the fall 2012 semester of Professor Aguilar's Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory course at UNC–Chapel Hill. One hundred student responses were recorded.