After 48 days, I have maybe recovered enough to reflect about the first period, which
finished on the 2nd of November. I think it can be useful to know
how first courses looked like.
The first period was composed by two
courses, Public Economics and Empirical Economics. As my predecessor blogger
Martijn said, these courses are meant as the basis on which the following
courses are going to construct. They were indeed very important courses, and
very different.
Public Economics was deepening in detail
the most important cases of market failures (public goods, externalities,
asymmetric information, etc.), considering the effects of possible policies. We
had two meetings per week: a lecture and a tutorial. They were both held only
for the around 20 students of our master. During the lecture, professor Groot
was explaining the main arguments of the course, connecting them with
contemporaneous debates. Every week we were furnished several articles meant to
problematize and expand the subjects from the book, while the professor was
always pointing out the concrete aspects of the theory, putting the theoretical
arguments in touch with actual problems of the international scene. Especially
interesting was the lecture on inequality, where through the web site of the
“Global rich list” we where shown in which highest percentage of the world
income distribution we were most likely going to be. With a net income of
25.000 euros per year, you would result in the top 1.5 % of world incomes.
A part from the connection with the real
world, I find interesting the theory of Public economics in itself. I was
always impressed by how economic science allows to deal with sociological and
psychological aspects of people’s behaviours in a mathematical and analytical
manner. You deal with graphs and formulas, which apparently look arid, but what
actually shape them are potential desires, fears, opinions, fatigues and
pleasures of people. All the “life lymph” which makes people work, choose
whether to affront risk, save or spend, privilege the rich or the poor, keeps
dancing in front of you in a ballet of lines and axes, while even the most
chaotic aspects of life can show in these limpid formulas where by listening
carefully you can still hear pulsing passions and fears. This is the most fun I
personally find in Public Economics.
In the tutorial we were instead preparing
the exercises for the exam. Tutorials were prepared by students, and every week
three or four of us were explaining the exercises related to the book chapters.
This made the course quite participated.
On the other hand, Empirical Economics was
essentially a course of Econometrics, which was teaching us a medium level
knowledge of the econometric theory and of regressions techniques. The course
was really important, since it furnishes the main empirical instruments to
actually work with economics; and it is the main “technique”, the most
important “know how” furnished by the master. This is personally the course on
which I was pointing the most in order to find a place in the labour market
afterwards.
Nevertheless, it was indeed a very
difficult course. Again it was structured in two meeting per week (lecture and
tutorial) but for this course students of all masters in economics were
together. So in lectures we were around 100 students, in a big hall (the
auditorium), while for tutorials we were splitting in smaller groups of around
25 students.
After the first two lectures which were
resuming the basic knowledge of statistics and econometrics (the content of the
summer-course), we started with time series, panel data and instrumental
variables. At the same time, for each tutorial we had to prepare several
exercises, mainly through the use of the software STATA (to learn its use was
one of the most important acquirements from the course).
Relating to the course of Empirical
Economics, I would like two add two things. On one hand, as I said, it was
extremely important. On the other, it was difficult: and it was difficult
because the subject itself is complicated, but also because the course was not
leading us by hand. The pre-required level of knowledge of the subject was
important, and while Dutch students were in general taking the basis course at
the bachelors, most part of international students had troubles. So I would
say: don’t take this as an argument against choosing the master: the course
will in the end make you know econometrics, which is really important. But it
won’t be easy. So prepare to acquire most part of the knowledge by self-study:
the chapters of the book will help you to understand (the book is indeed very
clear and provides several examples), the slides will tell you what’s the
essential material you need to know, and once you have read book and slides you
can follow the lectures which will make you practice with the subject. So
through this triad (book slides lectures) you can expect to pass the exam (and
I had indeed a final good grade). But don’t try to change the order of the
three, i.e. don’t expect to understand the lectures without reading book and
slides, or to understand the slides without reading the book.
In the end, to be true, I found very
interesting and fascinating also the course of Empirical Economics. I
personally like this abstract thinking, and enjoy how in your imagination all
these theoretical forces and cross effects combine giving shape to an
intellectual space. If I can give you one hint which cost me several weeks of
study and reflection, just remember this: the problem you will face in
empirical economics, is basically almost always the same: you have to avoid
that the error term is connected at the same time with the dependent variable
and with some explanatory variables, because it will give a biased estimator.
This can take several names: omitted variables, unit root, autocorrelation… but
the phenomenon which causes problem is at the end always this. You maybe now
don’t understand my words, but trust me, young Skywalker, they may turn to be
useful.
Up to now, I would say that I am really
satisfied with the master. It is interesting,
rich in insights, and in general we are followed quite well and almost with
a one-to-one attention. Only for one course over four it wasn’t so (Empirical
Economics -about the two courses of present period I will write later). Professors know us very well and it’s
perfectly normal to call us by name, in a familiar atmosphere work built on
daily basis in a group of less than 20 students. This is totally different from
what I was experiencing in Italy. At the same time, the work required is
affordable but important, which in the end will make the master useful. And I
would like to remind that I am not writing in the interest of USE, I simply
express my true impressions as a master student.
With this, I wish you all a nice holiday
and Christmas and friends! No matter if you may read in June or August -you
always have a Christmas in front of you…
