Thursday, September 23, 2010

If UC Berkeley undergraduates where U Chicago professors, and vice versa

I found Brad Delong's midterm exam for Econ 1 very interesting.  After reading it and pondering the answers I expect he was looking for, the following questions came to mind:

1) How well would economics professors at the University of Chicago do on Brad Delong's exam?

2) How well would UC Berkeley professors do on a University of Chicago principles of economics exam?

3) If I were to give an exam like Brad Delong's in a principles of economics class here at NCSU, what proportion of my students would drop the class?  Of those that didn't drop, how well would they do relative to Delong's students at UC Berkeley.(**)

4) Would the answers to questions 1-3 make a typical undergraduate student curious, motivated, indifferent, or completely disillusioned?

(**) Berkeley students are probably a more motivated and prepared than NCSU students, but the larger difference here may be that at Berkeley students have to do very well in Econ 1 to be accepted into either the economics major or business major.

1 comment:

  1. I've been wondering the very same thing. DeLong has laid out his description of depression economics, etc., so beautifully that I would think that it could/should make a mini-revolution in the teaching of macro-economics.

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