Summer schools

The main goal of the Foundations of DSGE modelling course is to provide instructions on the construction and estimation of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models and for their use for policy analysis. It is Dynare-based and is aimed at

• PhD, MSc or MRes students aiming to proceed to a PhD and early researchers who want to learn about DSGE modelling.
• Researchers and practitioners working at central banks, as well as at other private and public institutions who intend to construct or use DSGE models.

We require participants to have some prior experience with macroeconomic models and dynamic optimization and a basic knowledge of Matlab, but no prior knowledge of Dynare is necessary.

The Advanced topics in DSGE Modelling course is aimed at more established researchers or advanced PhD students who are already fluent in Dynare and Matlab. This course will be useful to anyone who is engaged in practical macroeconomic modelling work, especially if they are interested in working with models that are either computationally expensive to simulate, highly nonlinear, or infinite dimensional thanks to heterogeneous agents.

The foundations and advanced courses run in parallel for four days. Then on day five participants are able to choose one of several one day standalone courses. These courses are designed as such that participants from both the foundations and advanced courses can join them.

In the past the following stand-alone courses have been offered:

1. DSGE-VAR Models and Forecasting
2. Emerging Open Economies
3. Financial frictions
4. Occasionally Binding Constraints and Nonlinear Estimation
5. Optimal Policy Applications
6. From Matlab to Python in One Day.

The course contents below contain a more detailed description of the topics taught and what was offered in each year.

As part of the CIMS Summer School we hold a one-day conference on the last day of the course. All participants on the course are invited to submit a paper on some aspect of DSGE modelling. The organisers select five or six papers to be presented in full with discussants, while the remaining submissions are given the opportunity to be presented during our poster session. Keynote speakers of past conferences included Seppo Honkapohja, Albert Marcet and Tommaso Monacelli.

We have had participants at our Summer Schools (PDF) representing over 350 institutions from all over the world, including leading central banks and leading universities.

The courses have been taught by the following instructors over the years:

All sessions of the course take place in the Austin Pierce building on our campus. All practical sessions are held in computer labs.

We provide computers to all participants with Matlab and Dynare already installed and set up, but participants are also welcome to bring their own laptop. Course notes and model software are all included in the price of the course.

We provide a three course lunch for our participants every day in the on-campus Lakeside Restaurant.

We also invite our participants to a course dinner, which traditionally takes place in Olivo.

Our campus is located in Guildford in the Surrey Hills. Guildford is 35 minutes by train from London and can be reached by car from both Heathrow and Gatwick Airports in only 45 minutes. Find more information on how to reach our campus.

Guildford has a range of accommodation to suit a variety of budgets including:

• Travelodge
• The Radisson Blu Edwardian
• The Holiday Inn
• Asperion Hotel

Please see the Visit Surrey website for other options.

We usually are able to offer accommodation during our Summer Schools on campus at competitive rates (single en-suite rooms including breakfast).

More details on the content of our Summer Schools in each year can be found following the links in the table below.