reflections on macro I and monkeying around with OLGs

(Note: All of the text of this post was written on December 25th, 2023 while the attached pdf has been edited recently)

I just finished a Macro Theory I at NYU with Sargent and Ljungqvist. Thankfully I ended up doing well but even more so than that I realized that I have a lot of interest in Macro. Maybe it was the different nature of taking only one class — which allowed me to focus on understanding only one subject thoroughly as opposed to five or six at the same time although I will say that working a job while taking a class is quite difficult — but being immersed in so much econ from class to all the work and seminars at the Fed was a different and enjoyable experience in terms of understanding and getting appreciation of the subject.

I found myself naturally thinking about extensions of problems we discussed or how equilibriums would changed if we laxed certain assumptions (“extra thinking” that I would not do if I was in a class at CMU just struggling to keep up with all the course work) and having the time to actually work out examples myself as well. Very refreshing compared to the four year grind. The two topics of discussion that I have become intrigued with and will work on now before I have to focus on grad apps are structural modeling and just working out a few questions I had on OLG models and how they build out to the more involved macro models used on the frontier. I think I would probably be able to answer my questions with a few google searches leading to a handful of papers to read but it feels like a good exercise to put pen to paper and work it out myself.

On that end I’ve attached some of the work that I wanted to look into after the class ended on OLGs (and a few of the other blog posts later will be on some of the structural toy models that I want to have in hand going into grad school).

In other news, I will be taking Analysis II again at NYU this spring semester (and after that probably won’t take any more classes to focus on apps and other personal projects, although who knows may do Macro II next spring if they offer it) which I have heard is not as bad as analysis at CMU so we shall see how that goes in a few weeks.