Mini-workshop on Macroeconomic Analysis with Imperfect Information
From Monday May 22th until Wednesday May 24th 2022, Alexandre N. Kohlhas ( University of Oxford ) will give a workshop on Macroeconomic Analysis with Imperfect Information. The workshop takes place at Heidelberg University and consists of three 3-hour Lectures. Participation from external PhD students and postdocs is possible but limited. To participate, please register by sending an email to joep.lustenhouwer@awi.uni-heidelberg.de.
Course description
Most economic decisions depend on beliefs about either inherently unobservable variables or about future realizations of a variable. Different theories of belief formation will therefore have different implications for economic behavior. This part of the macro course aims at covering the tools needed to model alternative theories to the “full information, rational expectations hypothesis”. We will discuss important theoretical results and the methods used to derive them. Lecture notes and slides will be provided.
Useful Textbooks
“Information and Learning in Markets” by Vives (2008);
“Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance” by Veldkamp (2011);
“Information Science” by Luen- berger (2006);
“Learning and Expectations in Macroeconomics” by Evans and Honkapohja (2001).
Schedule
Monday 22.05.2023 14:45-17:45 hours – Lecture 1: Basics and Empirics
Overview and basics: motivation, bayesian learning, linear projections, the Kalman filter *Papers: Coibion and Gorodnichenko (2012, JPE; 2015, AER); Keane and Runkle (1990, AER); Pesaran and Weale (2006, Handbook of Forecasting), Bordalo et al (2020, AER).
Tuesday 23.05.2023 9:00-12:00 hours Lecture 2: Business Cycle Applications
Imperfect information business cycles: how important is imperfect information?
*Papers: Lucas (1972, JET), Jaimovich and Rebelo (2009, AER), Lorenzoni (2010, AER), Chahrour and Ulbricht (2022, AEJ Macro), Angeletos and Huo (2021, AER).
Wednesday 24.05.2023 14:00-17:00 hours Lecture 3: Attention Choice
Rational Inattention: endogenous information choice
*Papers: Luenberger (2006, book), Mackowiak et al (2018), Mackowiak and Wiederholt (2009), Veldkamp (2009, book), Sims (2003, JME), Bordalo et al (2016, QJE).
Mini-workshop on natural language processing (NLP) for economists
On Wednesday November 9th and Thursday November 10th 2022, Julian Ashwin ( London Business School ) will give a workshop on natural language processing for economists. The workshop takes place at Heidelberg University and consists of 4 Lectures.
Course description
Over four lectures, we will explore several approaches to natural language processing (NLP) for economists, including practical steps on implementation. In the first lecture, we will cover dictionary-based measures with a particular focus sentiment analysis for forecasting economic growth. In the second lecture, we will cover topic modelling and other unsupervised methods, motivated by an application to central bank communication. The third lecture will focus on supervised NLP methods, illustrated by an example scaling up qualitative analysis of open-ended interviews with Rohingya refugees. Finally in the fourth lecture we will cover approaches to NLP for causal analysis with particular attention on Bayesian Topic Regression and an application to the effect of media coverage on financial volatility.
Schedule
Wednesday Nov. 9
10:00-11:30 hours – Lecture 1: Dictionary methods and forecasting economic growth with news sentiment
Thursday Nov. 10
9:00-10:30 hours – Lecture 2: Topic modelling and central bank communication
10:45-12:15 hours – Lecture 3: Supervised NLP and qualitative analysis of unstructured interviews
14:00-15:30 hours – Lecture 4: Causal NLP and the financial volatility effects of media coverage
