Brief Biography

I have been a member of the faculty at UNC since 1976. I received my Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of Minnesota. I wrote my dissertation on the German hyperinflation of 1920-23 under the direction of Thomas J. Sargent.

My research interests are domestic and international monetary theory and macroeconomics. My most recent research projects include an policy evaluation of U.S. monetary policy, estimation of models, subject to the restriction that policy is optimal, via maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments, and analysis of unemployment in Hong Kong using a dynamic generalized equilibrium model.

I have a long standing interest in economic education. I was Assistant Director of the Center for Economic Education at the University of Minnesota between 1973 and 1976. I have directed the Teacher Training Workshop Project that was jointly sponsored by the American Economic Association (AEA) and the National Council on Economic Education. Between 1994 and 2000, I was chair of the AEA Committee on Economic Education.

Please feel free to contact me by sending email to me at Michael_Salemi@unc.edu.
 

Professional Information
Curriculum Vitae

The Great Courses
    Money and Banking: What Everyone Should Know  Published by The Teaching Company (link)

Economic Education

UNC Department of Economics Teacher Training Program
The Department of Economics at UNC-CH annually conducts a Teacher Training Program for graduate teaching assistants and new faculty.
For information, please see: UNC-CH Economics Teacher Training Program

American Economic Association Continuing Education Program, January 8-9, 2012
Advanced Interactive Teaching Methods in Economics    Program Schedule    Akerlof Reading (The Market for "Lemons"" Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism)

 Discussing Economics: A Classroom Guide to Preparing Discussion Questions and Leading Discussion 
 The book is co-authored with W. Lee Hansen and published by Edward Elgar. 
 It sets out a detailed approach to discussion modeled on the ideas of Mortimer Adler and the Great Books Foundation. 
 It explains why instructors should organize discussion around interpretive questions, how to plan and lead discussion and how to integrate
 discussion into a course.  It provides a guide to over 60 classic and contemporary readings that span much of the undergraduate economics curriculum
 providing a synopsis, learning objectives and recommended discussion questions for each. For more information, please click on the link:  Discussing Economics

Research Papers

  Economic Education 

        The Cost of Economic Literacy: How well does a Literacy-targeted Principles of Economics
        Course Prepare Students for Intermediate Theory Course (with Donna Gilleskie), Prepared for
        The National Conference on Teaching Economics, Stanford University, June 12-3, 2011.
           
        Developing Teacher Expertise for Economists through a Workshop Experience,
                Chapter 1 in Salemi and Walstad (eds.),  Teaching Innovations in Economics:
                Strategies and Applications for Interactive Instruction, Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2010.

        Classroom Discussion (with Kirsten Madden, Roisin O'Sullivan and Prothibha Joshi),
            Chapter 6 in Salemi and Walstad (eds.),  Teaching Innovations in Economics:
             Strategies and Applications for Interactive Instruction, Edward Elgar forthcoming 2010.

        Presentation on Peer Instruction at the 2010 Robert Morris Economic Education Conference

        Clickenomics: Using a Classroom Response System to Increase Engagement in a Large Enrollment Principles of Economics Course
            Link to published version        Longer Version, June 2008
           
            Asking the Right Kind of Question Promotes Learning During Discussion (April 2005)

            Teaching Economic Literacy: Why, What and How (March 2005)

  Research in Economic Education: Five New Initiatives   (with J. J. Siegfried, K. Sosin, W. B. Walstad, M. Watts)

  Use it or Lose it: Teaching Economic Literacy  (with W. Lee Hansen and John J. Siegfried)

  An Illustrated Case for Active Learning          
        Active Learning Exercises for Economics Courses to accompany the above article.

  A Model Teacher Education Program for Economics     (January 2003)

 

  Macroeconomics and Money

It's What They Do, Not What They Say: How to Infer the Stabilization Objectives of a Central Bank
Prepared for the Festchrift in honor of Alexander Swoboda, 2008

Long-run and Cyclic Movements in the Unemployment Rate in Hong Kong: A Dynamic, General Equilibrium Approach, March 2007

Feast and Famine: Explaining Big Swings in the Hong Kong Economy between 1981 and 2007 (with Chak Hung J. Cheng)
       Large Tables and Figures

Feast and Famine in Hong Kong: 1981 to 2007 (with Chak Hung J. Cheng)

GMM and Inverse Control (with Gregory Givens) 
  
Econometric Policy Evaluation and Inverse Control
     July 2005 Version:   pdf      postscript       extended version
    
Policy Evaluation with a Forward Looking Model    (2002, with Rouben V. Atoian and Gregory E. Givens) postscript version
        Matlab Code Used in Atoian, Givens, and Salemi

 
UNC Courses 

New Curriculum (Fall 2006 and Later)
Econ 101            Principles of Economics
Econ 101H         Principles of Economics (Honors)
Econ 423            Financial Markets

Spring 2006 and Earlier
Econ 6E             The Root of All Evil? Money as a Cultural, Economic and Social Institution
Econ 132a          Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory (Honors)
Econ 281            Monetary Theory
Econ 361/381     Monetary Theory and Policy: Domestic and International"