Project Seminar : Advanced Computational Economics

Aim of the course:

This seminar is offered for students who want to intensify and further improve their programming skills acquired in the course “Advanced Computational Economics” during the summer term. In order to achieve this goal, students will be assigned to a specific project at the beginning of the seminar (i.e. a RBC model, a Heterogeneous Agent model, a Life-cycle model or a stochastic OLG model). During the semester they will develop their own theoretical model and implement it numerically in FORTRAN.

After finishing this seminar students should be  

(a)   able to develop and implement a large scale economic model (b)   able to simulate policies with the model and interpret the results

(c)   be better prepared to manage a simulation study in their Master thesis

Outline:

The seminar will consist of an introductory class where students will select a specific project. During the semester they will report and discuss their progress with the theoretical structure and the numerical implementation in various meetings with their specific instructors. Based on this work they will prepare a term paper (approx. 20-25 pages) which they will present at the end of the semester to the whole class. The term paper will discuss the economic question at hand as well as the simulation approach together with some numerical results. Further extensions of the numerical model together with some detailed simulation results could be provided in a subsequent Master thesis.

Prerequisites:

Students need to have completed the course “Advanced Computational Economics” and bring along a strong willingness to specialize in programming. 

Grading:

Grading will be based on the term paper and the presentation in class, weighted 2:1.

Course materials:   

Required initial FORTRAN codes will be provided.