ECON 500 Money and Financial Systems

Instructor:    Dr. Jin W. Choi
                      6216 DePaul Center, Loop Campus
                      Phone: (312)362-8842
                      Fax: (312)362-5452
                      e-mail: jchoi@depaul.edu

Office Hours:      I can be available by appointment.

Textbook:    Mishkin, Frederic S. The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets,
                     Seventh Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2006.

Objective:    To understand better the role of money and financial systems in our economy via a close scrutiny of
                      the workings of the government, Federal Reserve System, commercial banks, and other financial
                      intermediaries.

Course Schedule:
 

Week
Topics to be Covered
Chapters Covered
1
Intro to Financial Markets
1, 2, 8*
2
Money and Interest Rates
3, 4*, 5
3
Term Strucutre
6*, 7*
4
Banking Industry
9, 10*, 11
5
Nonbanking Industry and Derivatives
12, 13, 14*
6
Midterm Exam
 
7
Federal Reserve System
15, 16, 17*
8
Tools of Monetary Policy and International Payments
18, 19, 20*
9
Monetary Policy
21*, 22*, 23*
10
Aggregate Demand and Supply
24*, 25*, 26*
11
Final Exam
 

                                        * This chapter may be somewhat challenging.
 
 

General Class Format:

The course schedule described above may have to be modified time to time to meet the need of the class. Any changes will be announced in class and every student is responsible for knowing and adapting to such changes. Some subject matter will be emphasized more than others and some chapters, where no additional explanation is deemed necessary, may or may not be discussed in class. Exam questions, however, will include these chapters as well. Exam Format: There will be two exams of the midterm and the final with an equal weight of 50% each. Each exam will have 50 multiple-choice questions and 10 to 15 short-essay questions. The short-essay questions will be fashioned after the chapter-end problems. Therefore, it will be helpful that you master all the problems at the end of each chapter whose answers are given in the text.

No make-up exam will be allowed unless prior permission is granted. If you have to miss the scheduled exam, please discuss the matter with the instructor a week before the exam or arrange to take the exam before the scheduled date. Otherwise, it is assumed that your total points for the missed exam will be zero. If a make-up exam is to be given, it will be most likely to have a different format.

 Grading Scale: Please visit the grading policy and scale site.