Dr Jason Lennard

This course is available on the MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research) and MSc in Financial History. This course is not available as an outside option.

A course in undergraduate econometrics

A course in undergraduate macroeconomics

This course studies the boom and bust of the business cycle in a historical perspective. The first part of the course covers the basics: how to define and measure business cycles, the costs of business cycles, the key business cycle facts, and theory and empirics in macroeconomic history. The second part explores propagation mechanisms, such as sticky prices and wages. The third part focuses on impulses, such as shocks to technology, financial crises, expectations and uncertainty, and monetary and fiscal policy.

The course examines advanced economies from the Industrial Revolution to the present. This interval of modern economic history includes deep recessions, major financial panics, reversals of expectations, and episodes of nominal inertia.

20 hours of seminars in the WT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 presentation and a 2,000 word essay in the WT.

• De Bromhead, A., Eichengreen, B., and O’Rourke, K. H., ‘Political Extremism in the 1920s and 1930s: Do German Lessons Generalize?’, Journal of Economic History, 73 (2013), pp. 371–406.
• Inklaar, R., De Jong, H., and Gouma, R., ‘Did Technology Shocks Drive the Great Depression? Explaining Cyclical Productivity Movements in U.S. Manufacturing, 1919–1939’, Journal of Economic History, 71 (2011), pp. 827–58.
• Hausman, J. K., ‘Fiscal Policy and Economic Recovery: The Case of the 1936 Veterans’ Bonus’, American Economic Review, 106 (2016), pp. 1100–143.
• Jalil, A., ‘A New History of Banking Panics in the United States, 1825–1929: Construction and Implications’, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 7 (2015), pp. 295–330.
• Jordà, O., Schularick, M., and Taylor, A. M., ‘Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts’, in M. Eichenbaum and J. A. Parker, eds., NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2016 (Chicago, 2017), pp. 213–63.
• Levy, D. and Young, A. T., ‘The Real Thing: Nominal Price Rigidity of the Nickel Coke, 1886-1959’, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 36 (2004), pp. 765–99.
• Ramey, V. A., ‘Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation’, in J. B. Taylor and H. Uhlig, eds., Handbook of Macroeconomics (Amsterdam, 2016), pp. 71–162.
• Richardson, G. and Troost, W., ‘Monetary Intervention Mitigated Banking Panics during the Great Depression: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Federal Reserve District Border, 1929–1933’, Journal of Political Economy, 117 (2009), pp. 1031–73.
• Romer, C. D., ‘Remeasuring Business Cycles’, Journal of Economic History, 54 (1994), pp. 573–609.
• Temin, P. and Wigmore, B. A., ‘The End of One Big Deflation’, Explorations in Economic History, 27 (1990), pp. 483–502.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the spring exam period.