The Gambia's Economic Crises of the 1980s

I read an article a few years a ago with rather a long title, Aid flows and Policy Reforms: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Adjustment and the Poor in The Gambia by Dorosh and Lundberg. What caught my attention about the paper was not just the CGE model for The Gambia which I had wrongly assumed was never done for the country but chapter 3 of the paper. This chapter deals with the events leading up to the 1984 Economic Crisis and the subsequent ERP (Economic Recovery Program) that was implemented in 1985/86. Chapter 3 is about 6 pages, but one of the most insightful 6 pages you'll read on the history of the Gambian economy. Here is a link to the article, chapter 3 starts from page 10.

MBCM Lecture Slide and Guest Lecture Slide

Here are the slides for the last class (Lecture 6) and the powerpoint presentation from the guest lecture of Mr Sanneh from Standard Chartered Bank.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/0aee3mum3ebkx43/MBCM%20lecture%206.pptx

http://www.mediafire.com/file/k25dcbb4ffz28b3/ALM%20LECTURE%20NOTES%20FOR%20MONEY%20MARKET%20ASSOCIATION%201.ppt

The debate on austerity measures and an example of policy interaction

During our class on Aggregate Demand (AD) and the IS-LM curves, we talked about using both Fiscal and Monetary Policies to achieve a certain goal. For example, raising taxes to reduce a budget deficit would lead to an inward shift in the IS curve and thus reducing both output and the interest rate. To maintain output, the Central bank needs to increase Money Supply to the point that output would remain at its original level (note we also talked about how difficult it would be for the CB to know exactly how much money to pump into the economy). Below is a piece by Christina Romer and a report by the IMF that deal with a debate that’s currently going on, whether now is the time for Western governments to take action to reduce their budget deficits. There are two sides, the first argues that now is the time for action to be taken before it’s too late and the second, that now is not the time, that economies are still fragile and austerity measures could to a double dip recession. The two links here are in favour of the latter, i will try and get a link to at least one article that is in favour of the former.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/business/24view.html?_r=1

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/02/pdf/c3.pdf

Intermediate Macro- Multipliers

In our last class, I asked the class to try and find the Gambia Government Multiplier using data from the statistical appendix. For those who could not find the Appendix, the link to two appendices covering the years 1990 to 2004 have been posted below. Instead of finding the government multiplier only, I'd like you to also calculate the tax rate multiplier and MPC multiplier. As I mentioned in class, estimate the models that make up the macro model (Output, Consumption, Investment and Money demand), then fit the parameters into the relevant multiplier equation to be able to get the actual figure. If you run into any problems, raise them in class.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/s9744xuecbs8a4h/gmb%20macro%20indicators%2090-97.pdf

http://www.mediafire.com/file/s8cccelncvhc4op/gmb%20macro%20indicators%2098-04.pdf

Given that we have now covered the basics of the IS-LM model and Aggregate Demand, I thought that you might find this piece interesting. There are some policy effects that Economics students have no trouble understanding. The problem for most students is the transmission mechanism. This piece gives an explanation of the transmission mechanism of how printing more money can lead to inflation.

http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/2010/08/28/why-cant-the-government-just-print-more-money-not-such-a-silly-question/

If you have comments on the piece, post them on the blog.

Lecture Slides Money and Banking

Below are the leture slides for Money, Banking and Capital Markets, lectures

3 and 4.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/skg481o4mo402as/mbcm%20Lecture%203.pptx

http://www.mediafire.com/file/k24al747k1rh79z/mbcm%20Lecture%204.pptx

Also take a look at the Central Bank website, cbg.gm. Look at the sections, Government Securities and Financial System. I'd like your comments with regards to the the structure of the Gambian Financial System compared to that of the US (in terms of size and the number of financial products available).

Money and Banking Lecture Slides

I have posted the link to the lecture slides below. As promised, I'll try and paste them before class. The slides include those of lecture one (last week) and two, for the next class. Also try and read the article that I mentioned below, the Money in a Prisoner of War Camp. It pertains to the topic we will be discussing in class on Friday.

Lecture 1: http://www.mediafire.com/file/1alc4bbsfa774l1/MBaCM%20Lecture%201.pptx

Lecture 2: http://www.mediafire.com/file/70qwalqqx0yzhv8/MBaCM%20Lecture%202.pptx

Interesting Sites

Earlier in class, I said I'd give you a list of some interesting sites. below are some sites and blogs that I think you would find useful. Try and frequent (at least once a week) these sites during the course o f the year.

The Economist: economist.com

Mankiw's Blog: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

EconLog: http://econlog.econlib.org/#

Freakonomics: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

Wikieconomics: http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/

Word 2003

Some of the students complained about not having word 2007. I promised I'd upload the word 2003 as well. The link to the course outlines are below.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b5312cqan1fqi

The question set for the Mathematical Economics class was also in word 07. For those who could not access it, here's the 2003 version:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/7sbih3w9ew1e8nh/Prerequisite%20Questions.doc

Course Outlines

I've uploaded the course outlines for the course am taking this semester. Follow the link below to download the course outline for the course you are taking.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ggz3rdzpg57tr

For those doing Money and Banking, below is a link to an interesting article about how cigarettes were used as currency in a prisoner of war camp during WW2. Please read, and if you have any comments you can post them on this blog.

http://www.albany.edu/~mirer/eco110/pow.html

Those students doing Mathematical Economics will notice that I've omitted a couple of topics (Partial Equilibrium Analysis and Single Variable Differentiation) on the course outline. I expect that you've treated these topics in Business Maths. As a result I have picked a couple of questions on these topics for you guys to try out. The questions can be found in Alpha Chiang, but I've put them all into one word document. Try them out and if you have any problems you can raise them in class.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/we4ut8hwxerf4r1/Prerequisite%20Questions.docx

About the blog

Hi, my name is Yaya S Jallow. I am a lecturer with the University of The Gambia. I've stated this blog as a way to connect and share information with my students at the university. Students at UTG regularly complain about a lack of study materials and I thought that this would be a great way to guide them to some of the materials available on the web that they would find useful (outside of the lecture notes and textbook). On this blog, I'll post my lecture notes, assignment questions, links to other useful sites for Econ students and also write on issues that we' ll be discussing in class.