“It talks about monetary economics, and inflation in a very technical way, but of the books of that kind it’s the easiest and gives you an overview of the vision of the so-called New Keynesian model. Jordi is an amazing writer. There is a lot of intuition, despite the use of a lot of math. It helps you to understand, first of all, how inflation is created in a mathematical model, but most importantly, why we care about it.” Read more...
Federica Romei, Economist
“It’s a nice book, but it has a lot of critics. Many scholars think that the conventional narrative is not wrong. However, I think it’s an interesting exercise. And it’s out-of-the-box thinking because most of the people think that the reason, why from the 1980s to 2008, we had this big period in which there was inflation stabilisation is due to the fact that monetary policy was very successful. He claims that, no, it’s just a coincidence. It’s interesting, but it’s difficult to read.” Read more...
Federica Romei, Economist
“What is nice is that in every chapter you ever an economist, expert on that country writing the story. And they give you a lot of data about each specific country. And at the end of each chapter, there are discussions with other economists, saying what they think is good and what they think is improvable about the chapter. It’s easy to read and very interesting and it makes comparisons between countries easy.” Read more...
Federica Romei, Economist
“The main motive in the book is to make the case for inflation targeting. In the book, the authors argue the target shouldn’t be a strict rule. It should be more like a framework in which the central bank operates in order to stabilize inflation…And when Bernanke was running the Fed he ensured there was this flexibility, with no strict target.” Read more...
Federica Romei, Economist
“Romer is very advanced undergraduate level or early graduate. If you study macroeconomics at an advanced level, you will come across this book. If you want to have a comprehensive and broad perspective of what macroeconomic theory is today, in the broadest and most concise from, this is the book.” Read more...
The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks
Raffaele Rossi, Economist
“I use it for my second-year macroeconomic undergraduate courses. We have two streams in our economics degree, and I teach on the more technical one, the BSc in economics. The book is more technical, not only from a mathematical point of view, but also from a logical point of view. The intuitions are elaborated in detail and very precise.” Read more...
The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks
Raffaele Rossi, Economist
“He’s a great writer. It’s a classic and generation after generation of economists have gone through it. You cannot list five books on economics for undergraduates and not include this book. It would be like listing the five top guitarists from the 1960s and not including Jimi Hendrix.” Read more...
The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks
Raffaele Rossi, Economist
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
by Anna Schwartz & Milton Friedman
As economic activity looks set to slow dramatically in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, attention has turned to what governments and central banks can do to mitigate the worst effects of the downturn. This is a seminal work on the causes of the Great Depression in the United States. Schwartz and Friedman blamed the intensity of the depression on the Federal Reserve. Ben Bernanke credited this work with ensuring the Fed didn’t make the same mistakes in 2008/09.
Recursive Macroeconomic Theory
by Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J Sargent
"This is the textbook I use in my PhD macro courses. In fact, any respectable programme most likely uses this book. It’s sort of the Bible."
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1
Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework and its Applications
by Jordi Gali -
2
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
by Anna Schwartz & Milton Friedman -
3
Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience
by Adam S. Posen, Ben Bernanke, Frederic S. Mishkin & Thomas Laubach -
4
A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960–2017
by Juan Pablo Nicolini & Timothy J. Kehoe -
5
The Conquest of American Inflation
by Thomas J. Sargent
The best books on Inflation, recommended by Federica Romei
The best books on Inflation, recommended by Federica Romei
Inflation has been under control in the developed world for decades now. Many assumed we had it beaten, but it has picked up recently and is once again a major policy concern. Here, Oxford economist Federica Romei chooses five books to help you understand inflation from a historical and theoretical perspective, and when, if and why you should worry about it.
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1
Macroeconomics
by Greg Mankiw -
2
Macroeconomics
by Stephen Williamson -
3
Advanced Macroeconomics
by David Romer -
4
Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework and its Applications
by Jordi Gali -
5
Recursive Macroeconomic Theory
by Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J Sargent
The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks, recommended by Raffaele Rossi
The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks, recommended by Raffaele Rossi
In its study of the broader economy, macroeconomics is a vital tool for understanding the world around us, offering insights into issues that affect us all, like inflation and unemployment. Which textbooks to read to learn more about it? Here, Raffaele Rossi, Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, recommends his top macroeconomics textbooks, starting with entry-level books aimed at undergraduates all the way through to the tough tomes you’ll need to plough through if you’re doing a doctorate and want to work at the frontier of the discipline.
