ECON 4111 Money and Banking Systems
Instructor Contact:
Sara Avila, PhD
Email: sara.avila@colorado.edu
About the Course:
This course is designed as an advanced course to provide an understanding of money and banking from an economic perspective and it discusses money, financial institutions and the monetary-financial system in a modern economy. The structure of money, banking, and financial institutions will be explored. The impacts of present and future value as well as risk will be evaluated. The role of the Federal Reserve as the central bank will be examined. Finally, the course will introduce current issues in money growth and monetary policy.
Course Prerequisites:
ECON 3080 (Intermediate Macroeconomics) with a C- or better course grade.
Proctoring:
This course requires proctored examinations. Exams are proctored which will require planning on your part. Proctors are individuals who administer the exam process following the guidelines provided by University of Colorado Boulder to ensure academic integrity. Some proctoring options require the student to pay a fee.
Objectives:
After completing this course students should be able to:
- Identify the different functions of money and how money is related to interest rates; understand how interest rates are determined, as well as the behavior of interest rates, and the risk and term structures of interest rates.
- Demonstrate the importance of financial markets and financial institutions in the economy; identify the essential operations of depository institutions; justify why they are heavily regulated.
- Explain how a nation’s money supply is determined; know the various tools of monetary policy, the role of central banks and the Federal Reserve System, and the conduct of monetary policy.
- Apply principles, theories and models to critically analyze and explain economic situations encountered in the real world that involve money, financial markets and institutions, financial crisis, and actions undertaken by central banks in the development and implementation of monetary policy.
Required Texts:
Money, Banking, and Financial Markets by Stephen Cecchetti and Kermit Schoenholtz, 6th edition with access to Connect. Connect is the website where you will read your textbook and complete some graded assignments. You will access Connect through our course website, Canvas. You will have a free Connect trial for the first two weeks of class before having to purchase it.
Grading (out of 1000 points):
- Model Prep (110 points): There will be six (6) 10-point Model Prep activities that will revolve around math or economics being used that section of class and the lowest of these assignments will be dropped from your final grade calculation.
- LearnSmart (75 points): Each chapter has an associated Smart Book activity on Connect. Students complete this activity by answering questions until they reach the target score. Once students reach the target score, they receive full credit (a grade of 100%) for completing the activity. Students may continue answering questions to review even after they’ve completed the activity or after the due date has passed BUT credit is awarded only when completed by the due date.I will count your 15 best SmartBook scores.
- Problem Sets (220 points): There are twelve (12) Problem sets each worth 30 points. Your lowest two scores of the problem sets will be dropped from your final grade calculation.
- Discussion/Exercises (150 points): Formal class discussion and exercises help extend economic analysis by relating actual events to the theories presented in class. There will be six (6) discussions or exercise postings, each worth 30 points and your lowest score is dropped.
- Practice Exams (20 points): There will be two (2) practice exams, one before each exam.
- Exams(425 points): There are two (2) exams. The midterm exam is worth 200 points and the cumulative final exam is worth 225 points. The exams are completed in a proctored setting.