ECON GU4251

Horizontal/vertical mergers and integration, collusion, price discrimination, research and development, patents, etc.

Standard, biweekly PSets midterm 30% final 50% 5 out of 6 highest Psets: 20%

6 PS, MT 30%, Final 50%----1 PS is dropped

Not too bad- a few problem sets, midterm and final. Fairly difficult midterm/final

Problem set every 2 weeks, midterm & final (both harder than expected), easy grading

More in-depth micro. A lot on firm decisions and behavior

Prof. Ho is a great lecturer and very approachable, who posts lecture notes before classes and stays after lectures if you have questions. Like general econ-classes, models are simplified but explained very clearly; and they are generally quite applicable in interviews like M&A models. That being said, it is indeed very model-based and thus involves some level of math (in my opinion not as math-intensive as people warned here, more like 1-st order condition and taking partial derivatives). Additional to solving models, she does ask intuition questions to test students' true understanding, so be prepared for that. People usually do quite well in this class (or maybe just my own experience, an overall 91+ only lands me in a B+ range). Therefore, if you are considering this class, be mindful of the curve and don't screw up any midterm or homework b/c you may not get a chance to make it up at all (again, perhaps it's only me). In all, I enjoyed this class despite the curving down situation. And I highly recommend Prof. Ho and this lecture.

Woah. Firstly, there' s no textbook to this class (a suggested one, but it has very few of the models he lectures on, and if it does it works through things differently). So you have to have to rely entirely on your notes, especially since our TA (Such Virabak) was really good at not coming to recitation, and avoiding all student contact. You can feel lost in this class easily. Bagwell is a great lecturer, a litle dry, but he goes really fast so you have to pay attention every minute. He developed some of the models he teaches, so he knows it backwards and forwards. He spits his logic out like water, and you won't know what hit you. However, his tests don't call far the in depth mathematical understanding that he presents in class, but who would have known. You study it anyways in panic. He usually asks you to to do two math problems (memorize the steps!) and two written essays. But hey, he doesn't grade the tests. He doesn't give hw, just "try it yourself" problems sets. Overall, I felt like I was constantly trying to grasp for some foundation, but instead you've just got a lot of models you're not sure about. That's not to say they're not interesting, and he's not a really cool guy.

Challenging course and concepts. But more importantly I want to say that I gave a bad review to both the Professor (Nicholas Schutz) and TA (David DeRemer) Why? Nicholas Schutz, skated the entire semester by simply reading powerpoint lecture slides that were later posted on Courseworks. Pretty straightforward right? for him it was; and for the mathematically acute it is, but for those who actually need what they paid for (A Professor who can actually profess and a TA that can actually assist) to help them understand the subject matter at hand, experienced a serious disadvantage. As far as attitude in the class is concerned. No one shows up to class and the feedback in the lectures are mostly the noise of cell phone buttons being pushed as people are texting in class. Both Nicholas Schutz (Professor) and David DeRemer (TA) were absolutely horrible in their ability to effectively communicate the subject matter in this class. TA sessions were 2 hours long, had their own lecture slides, and even had practice problems! Paired with a pathetic communicator, this is like jihading your own neurons. So my recommendation is that you DO NOT take this class if you can help it. Dealing with these two guys was nothing more horrifying than bad business. Take this class at your own peril (literally) Hope this helps.

I do not like this woman. This is not just grade bitterness speaking- I got an A- in her course. She is just a very poor teacher- difficult to understand, does not explain the material enough, and is extremely mean. The occassional smile cannot conceal her icy inner core. She does not have the best command of English (continually referring to monopolies as nomopolies, even in writing). I would not recommend taking a class with her, but I would recommend running away if I saw her on the street.