1. Testimonies from Two Students (Graduated June 2017)
“Macro in Real Life”
Testimonies from Two Students
(Graduated June 2017)

2. Student One
I’m ing today for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to thank you again for being such a great Professor during my time at Union. I thoroughly enjoyed both of the classes I was fortunate enough to take with you. I found them to not only be exciting and interesting, but I felt your teaching style was highly engaging and the material which we were working on was applicable not only to economics, but to everyday life; which brings me to the other reasons for my .

3. Over the summer, I read a book called “The Industries of the Future” by Alec Ross (former Senior Advisor for Innovation in the State Department and Obama campaigns). While the book as a whole was really interesting, I found one chapter in particular which I thought might give your future macro students a unique view of external economies today, and their potential for the future. Chapter 6 of the book, entitled “Geography of Future Markets”, starts with an in depth look into how external economies have progressed through globalization, and later includes Ross’ argument as to why he believes that further increases in technology will result in individual countries, regions, and cities, handling data analytics and other technological business practices that relate to their particular domain of expertise, rather than exporting those services to silicon valley. While my description may be somewhat lacking, Ross does a great job of explaining the situation and his argument in the book.

4. On a more anecdotal note, I have recently moved into Hell’s Kitchen, NY and have been experiencing firsthand the external economy of theater production. Not only do I walk past actor’s studios, costume shops, talent agencies, and countless theaters on a daily basis, I have also noticed that the external economy has even permeated peoples’ personal lives, as there are a few churches and synagogues in my area specifically designed for actors! I thought it was really cool to see how the external economy not only affected theater production in the country, but also how it affected seemingly unrelated industries in the area.

5. Finally, I thought you would be interested in knowing that I have been working directly with macro/international economics in my job. I have recently been assigned to a case in which multiple civil and criminal regulatory agencies are investigation LIBOR manipulation by major international banks. When I was first assigned, I sat down with a few attorneys to discuss the details and every 5 or 10 minutes I would have to stop myself from saying “its alright guys, Prof. Motahar already taught me all this stuff, so this is all really review”.

6. I know this has been an exceptionally long , but I found it really exciting to be experiencing, hands on, a lot of the stuff I had been learning in my favorite classes. I hope you have a great term, Proffessor Motahar, and please stay in touch.

7. Student Two
I don't know if you remember, but I wrote my research paper in Contemporary Problems in Macro about the digitization of the world and how jobs are being replaced with automation. Interestingly, the CEO of Stanley put out a book list for the people in my program and one of them is titled "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" by Klaus Schwab. It goes hand-in-hand with the paper I wrote. Within the first few pages he mentioned both Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee whom you suggested and I utilized their work in my paper.