Current Courses

Teaching Philosophy

Courses I Teach

• Econ 2010 - Principles of Microeconomics
  We will learn how individual “agents” in an economy make decisions. The agents are either consumers or producers, and sometimes both. The decisions they make are how much to consume or produce in the face of constraints of money, time, and other inputs. And we will learn how the output of an economy is distributed to the agents. We will also learn that economists think about these problems using “models,” which are simplifications of the real world designed to let us focus on important fundamentals without being distracted by all the complexities of reality. The models will introduce the fundamental economic ideas of markets, supply and demand. Much of our understanding will involve models of “perfectly” competitive markets, again a simplifying assumption to let us focus on fundamentals. Later, we will examine how agents behave in imperfect markets such as monopolies.
  Econ 2010-070 Spring 2009 Syllabus.pdf
• Econ 2020 - Principles of Macroeconomics
  This course will introduce you to the main Macroeconomic principles and theories.The focus will be on the mechanisms and processes taking place in the three main markets existing in a modern economy: the goods market, the financial market and the labour market. My goal is to teach you to think about economic issues analytically. Thus we will use economic history as well as basic algebra, calculus, and graphs. We’ll also discuss macroeconomic policies and tools in the context of past and current economic events affecting the U.S. economy and other economies across the world. In order to grasp contemporary debates related to the way economies and economic policies work in the real world, I will present content from a variety of sources including economic journals, blogs and newspapers such the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal.
  Utah Econ 2020 Sp11 Syllabus.pdf
• Econ 3640 - Probability and Statistical Inference
  Build numeracy in probability and statistics. Numeracy is a journey…no one is completely numerate. So this is just another step, an important one, to building the necessary toolkit if you wish to understand and contribute to modern economic discourse. Enable understanding of economic literature. Statistics are widely used in modern economic studies. To understand what the authors are trying to say, and to be able to judge them critically, you need a good base in probability and especially statistics. To do quantitative research in economics should you choose to continue along that path, you will need these tools. So to be able to ask, and answer, a whole class of interesting and important economic questions (and beyond), you will need these tools.
  Econ 3640-03 Syllabus Sp 10.pdf
• Econ 4650 - Introduction to Econometrics
  This class has the potential for being one of the most rewarding classes you can take as an undergraduate – and a different experience as this is a class in applied economics. You will learn a lot about statistical modeling and learn to use software pack- ages to perform econometric analysis. This will be an applied class and should prepare you for working with data in a job environment or in graduate school. The class builds on Econ 3640 and we will review basic probability and statistics as we move through the material. No experience with computers is assumed, but we will use computers extensively.
  Syllabus 4650-001 Sp11 - 5533.pdf
• Econ 7960 - Bayesian Econometrics
  Bayesian analyses have been an increasingly important part of modern econometrics. This course is introductory in nature with a focus on applications of Bayesian statistics utilizing programs written in R. It will be supported via WebCT (assignments, readings, data, and code). Grades are based on a handful of small assignments and largely based on a conference style presentation of research and discussion near the end of the term. Please check the WebCT calendar frequently. We will discuss this format in class in detail. I was an invited guest instructor to present a four week module of advanced time series econometrics.