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What college econ courses have you taken?

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vive la insurrection posted on Sat, Mar 23 2013 1:24 PM

Just curious what you guys have college credit for.

If you're a high scholl student say what courses your school offers.

I'm about 8 years removed from my first degree, where I took all my econ classes, and I can't remember my profs names, nor do I own the books anymore but from The University of Toledo I took:

Principles of Micro (100 level course)

Pinciples of Macro (100 level course)

International Trade (200 level course)

Current Topics (or som similar name, a 200 level course)

I also took a stats class if that counts. 

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When I was in college, I took Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory. Of course, it was Keynesian economics. I've considered going back for some sort of applied economics masters.

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Micro (201) - A

Macro (202) - A

i used Rothbard's Power and Market to get me through the Micro/Macro

Public Health (308) - C (Gruber - Public health and public Finance)

Money & Banking (305) - B (Mishkin - can't remember title)

I changed from Econ to PolySci/Philosophy after that.  Fuck academic economics.  We should put focus onto the philosophy of economics; metaeconomics/paraeconomics.  Meta economics in the same way that meta philosophy behaves and paraeconomics in the same way that parapolitics (rethinking fundamentals) behaves.  Check out what philosophers say about the philosophy of economics (it is a joke to them): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/economics/ - ironically they say that economics is, at this point, only good for a study of academic incentive structures the study of which is an economic methodology; one that would lead them to understand incentives (Value, decision, and action theories).

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We should put focus onto the philosophy of economics; metaeconomics/paraeconomics.

You read my mind - an I was thinking about doing a series of posts on this in the upcomming months.

I've been somewhat quiet about this, but I have had a very strong opinion for some time that, despite what some amazing Austrians (that is, professionals, and great intellects, who have studied and engaged in this to an incomprable amount when compared to me) say - but I think there may be some too many irreconcilable fundamental differences in non batshit crazy heterodox approaches to more "mainstream" approaches to think anything but the whole philosophy of the social sciences is what has to be looked at - to the point that more superficial conclusions and theories are just talking past each other.

This may be my inherent Aristotelian-Thomistic mind at work but I think it is unavoidable in the phiosophy of the social sciences /the social sciences in general that one field's conclusions, are another fields premise (ex: Physics / Optics), and this seems to be brushed under the table.

Furthermore, there may very well be a structure in the very institution that is going to be too great of an uphill battle for certain heterodox approaches (as AE may very well be as opposed to something like Marxism) over others due to the inherent nature of the argument presented.

Anyway, I don't want to hijack my own thread and that's all I'll say on that.

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Just the standard Micro/Macro combo myself.

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Bogart replied on Sat, Mar 23 2013 5:27 PM

Two courses in Micro-Economics and unfortunately one in Macro-Economics/Keynesian Gibberish.  I am currently helping my girlfriend with her Micro and it is awful.  They have whole chapters on "Market Failures",. "Positive and Negative Externalities", and two full chapters on Monopoly.  And the bad part is that I do not believe that any of these exist absent government force.  And it gets better, she has Macro next semester and I warned her that I will be very irritated helping her with that class.

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I took AP Micro/Macro in high school and I'm taking Intermediate Micro at the moment (A so far). Looking forward to that Comp Sci/Econ double major :)

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Sad as it is,... my macro economics' book was written by Ben Bernanke... :(

Glad I saw right through it! :)

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Anton replied on Sun, Mar 24 2013 4:22 AM

1. Principles of Economics.

2. Microeconomics.

3. Macroeconomics.

I got 8 out of 10 (We in Belarus have a 10- point system)

Unfortunately, I've learned about the ASE only after having taken everyting above, which, as you understand, turned the whole Macro  into garbage (I've completely forgotten Micro as of now, so can't be sure about it).

Plus shitload of international economics/ international economic relations courses that revolved basically around the theories of international trade and international organizations.

 

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these are the courses I've taken that were at least shared with or suggested by the economics department:

 

college (2 years pre-engineering school)

- introduction to business administration

- introduction to accounting

- introduction to business costs

 

1st year engineering school

- Introduction to micro and macro-economics

 

2nd year engineering school

- Elements of Micro-economics

- Elements of Macro-economics

- "Enterprise economics"

- Markov Processes and martingales

- Statistics

- Optimization

- Monetary history (mandatory humanities credit --> easy "blabla" stuff --> I made a talk on austrian economics, which had been ignored during the main course, and got a B :-\  

 

3rd year engineering school

- Game theory

- Time series

- Stochastic Calculus and mathematical finance

- Monte Carlo methods

- Stochastic queues and networks

- Operational research

- Transport and diffusion theory

 

MSc in mathematical finance (not really economics, but still somewhat related)

- Derivatives

- Discrete time markets

- Topics in financial markets (conventions and regulations --> mostly "blabla" stuff and easy math)

- Econometrics

- High frequency trading and dark pools of liquidity

- Statistical arbitrage and hedge funds

- Volatility surface models

- Financial risk analysis and credit rating

- Portfolio optimization

- Interest rate models and fixed income derivatives

- Commodities and energy markets

- Mean field games

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Where are you all going where Keynesianism is still being taught? I've only managed to encounter two of them thus far and one of them was about to retire soon.

Principles of Micro 

Principles of Macro 

Price Theory 

Intermediate Macro (Keynesianism & RBC Theory) 

Banking 

Managerial Economics 

Law & Economics 

Economic Statistics 

Intro Econometrics 

Developmental Economics 

Economic Institutions 

American Economic History 

History of Economic Thought 

Political Economy (political science class) 

Labour Economics (not for credit)

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In my econ major I've only taken two actual econ courses in my last two quarters

Principles of Micro: A

AP Macro: A

Intermediate Macro (fuck IS-LM): B

I'm currently taking

Behavioral

Managerial

Hopefully I'll get an A in both. I'm vaguely headed that way in managerial (his tests are giant "fuck you"'s and that's the only way to get credit) and I won't know for behavioral until today after the first exam :D

@Aristophanes

Wow, how did you use Rothbard to get through macro? In my experience intro to macro was basically inflation, bonds, and AS-AD... IDK I found that class to be a joke anyway.

@Mich

I was actually amazed at how apolitical my professors really are. I think that Austrian economists tend to consider economics a much more political science than most other economists normally do. I went to an NSE meeting last year and I could have schooled some of the PHD's who were talking about the recession.

Anyway, my intermediate macro professor was an outspoken Keynesian, another professor at my school is a "closet" Keynesian, and my history of economic thought professor is a Marxist... AINT NO JOKE. Keynesianism is still quite popular macroeconomically, and frankly in our day and age I think it makes more sense than monetarism or rational expectations, so if that was what I was faced with (which it is for most PHD's) I'd probably drift of to a mix of moderate Keynesianism and rational expectations. I don't know how one stays a monetarist in today's economic environment.

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Keynesianism is still quite popular macroeconomically

Um... yes? You mean new Keynesianism, right? Does this deserve questioning?

I don't know how one stays a monetarist in today's economic environment.

Haven't we been following generally monetarist policies?

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Wheylous,

I was responding to this statement

"Where are you all going where Keynesianism is still being taught? I've only managed to encounter two of them thus far and one of them was about to retire soon."

Anyway, I'm ignorant as to the real differences between neo-Keynesianism and new-Keynesianism, but I think that economic schools tend to overstate their differences in today's intellectual environment. All major economic schools of thought are fundamentally Keynesian in nature. Keynes is the true grandfather of modern business cycle theory. Anyway, I was only really taught neo-keynesianism, which isn't different than what I've seen people like Krugman argue, so I don't think there's a huge amount of real difference.

I'd like to read more about post-keynesianism, however, it sounds like an area where some legitimately good work might actually be being done with challenging the base of all modern economics. Some of them might find themselves at Austrianism without realizing it.

"Haven't we been following generally monetarist policies?"

Absolutely not... Close to the opposite if we take the "orthodox" Friedmanite monetarism. You could argue that we are from a more Keynesian monetarism, but even then the existence of widespread fiscal policy just means you're wrong. What is your understanding of monetarism that makes you say this?

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