The Faculty is planning a significant overhaul of Part IIA Macroeconomics, but much of what has been communicated to students so far has been misleading or incomplete.

For example, in the Faculty’s 24 June email, it was stated that the new course “will continue to cover all the topics covered in the course in recent and previous years.” This is simply not accurate. Topics like hysteresis, currency crises, the monetary operating system, the term structure of interest rates, and inflation bias—all of which were regularly taught and included in past course outlines and advertised to prospective students—are set to be removed under the new structure.

The revised course significantly reduces content on monetary and open economy macroeconomics and instead prioritises intertemporal, micro-founded general equilibrium models. While these models are more common in academia, they are increasingly being abandoned by central banks for lacking real-world relevance.

It’s also worth noting that these models tend to be more technically demanding and narrower in scope. Many of our recent grads at St John’s achieved firsts in the current Part IIA Macro, but still found the more abstract IIB models challenging. This suggests the proposed new focus would likely result in a smaller, more limited curriculum for Part IIA —not a more rigorous one.

This matters because the current course isn’t just theory-heavy—it directly applies economic thinking to real-world issues. Macroeconomic headlines often feature in lectures the following day. That makes it not only more engaging, but also more helpful for:
- choosing a Part IIB dissertation topic
- preparing for internships or public/private sector jobs after IIA
- understanding real-world macroeconomic policy.

Students won’t get a second chance to study macro at this level in the Tripos, so losing this breadth and practical perspective is a big deal. Given past positive student feedback, sticking to a certainly good course, as opposed to an unproven, experimental course, makes more sense.

By law, the Faculty cannot make a material change to a course without student consent, especially if students applied based on information that no longer reflects the updated course. According to University guidance:

“If [course changes] are material... and the student has not agreed to them, it is likely that the University will have breached consumer law.”
“It is vital that course changes are within the bounds of what has already been advertised to students... and are not changes which students would view as material, or disadvantageous.”