The Economics of Crises - Period 2 Social Sciences & Humanities Program Fall 2021 Semester - Amsterdam

The course discusses Macroeconomic policies intended to affect and dampen the business cycles linked to a crisis. We discuss the roles of different authorities in conducting macroeconomic policies aimed at preventing a crisis or at restoring the economic activity after a crisis hits. Relevant topics are for instance: money creation, control of the interest rates, central banking and the stabilizing role of fiscal policy with a specific focus on health care expenditures. We investigate the origin and approach to the corona crisis and the previous (financial) crisis looking at these issues from different perspectives. So, for the present crisis, we debate mostly the policy response of national governments, the ECB and the EU. For the previous crisis we discuss the common narrative (the banks were guilty) but also the micro view on the role of indebtedness (we did it!). Which
explanations will convince you the most?

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) awards credits based on the ECTS system. Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.