Workbook for Macroeconomic Theory

This book presents the answers to the exercises in Macroeconomic Theory, Fluctuations, Inflation and Growth in Closed and Open Economies, 2nd Edition, by Fernando de Holanda Barbosa (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2024), hereafter referred as Macro Theory.

Altogether, there are 170 exercises in eleven chapters and three appendices.  Many of these exercises are based on, or inspired in, the literature listed in the bibliography of Macro Theory, although the sources are not documented. The goal of a good number of exercises is to help the student to develop the skills necessary to obtain the model’s empirically testable predictions. You should try to solve each exercise by yourself but do not be upset if you cannot. Some exercises are very hard and take time to work out. However, to learn, you should persevere and try again and again. We hope that this workbook will help you in the learning process of macroeconomic theory.

The most important change in this second edition is Part IV, which presents an abridged survey of the empirical evidence on macroeconomic models. This part has four chapters. Chapter 12 takes care of growth. Chapter 13 analyzes the main characteristics of business cycles. Chapter 14 presents the empirical evidence on Keynesian models, and Chapter 15 deals with several issues related to the budget constraint, such as chronic inflation, the pathologies of hyperinflation, public debt crises, external debt crises and the fiscal theory of the price level.