Using Countries as Cases: Designing a Course in Applied Macroeconomics

David W. Conklin

David Conklin

Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Volume 2: 2005, pp. 83-106; ABSTRACT

This article describes a course developed over the past seven years in an Executive MBA program, where class discussions revolve around the study of current economic conditions in some fifty countries. For each country, a student group prepares a report that analyzes the economic issues of most importance, recommends macroeconomic policies and presents an evaluation of the growth and investment potential. The course focuses on five loosely defined regions. An introductory lecture for each region presents theoretical analyses of macroeconomic issues that are especially significant for the region as a whole, placing these in historical perspective. Then students debate the appropriate macroeconomic policies to suit the economic realities of each nation, and forecast the likely prospects for the economy. With this course design, students must have ready access to current economic information on each country for which they are developing a report, and so a School must be a subscriber to a number of databases for this course to be successful. Prior to the rapid proliferation of data sources in the Web, the design of this course may not have been possible. This article presents concepts and perspectives that can form the basis for regional introductory lectures, and it suggests some key macroeconomic issues for discussions related to particular countries.

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