People often ask me what it’s like to teach both introductory economics courses and Ph.D. level economics courses in the same academic year, which I have done regularly for many years at Stanford including this year. The courses are at extreme ends of the educational spectrum, and there are several obvious differences.
First is the math. My Ph.D. course is loaded with math—multivariate stochastic processes, differential and difference equations, inter-temporal optimization, vector auto-regressions. It is not unusual to fill several slides or blackboards with equations. Here is what you would see if you walked into my Ph.D. lecture on risk and rates of return on bonds.
