Professor
Natalie Bau
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Yes, this course is challenging; however, there has been significant improvement from what I heard the class was like last year. This was my first economics course ever and I felt like I was actually gaining something from the course and that it wasn't as terrible as previous reviews had made it seem. Professor Bau does go quite fast in her lecture, but everything is very on par with what is in the textbook so if you even skim the readings or read the summary at the end of each chapter, you'll understand her lectures a lot better. There is also a free PDF of the textbook online, albeit a different version, but it didn't make a difference to me. Her problem sets are difficult; however, she encourages group work and the midterm and final is basically the same thing as the problem sets, just with different numbers. 9 people got perfect scores on the midterm, pre-curve, which just shows how the course is not impossible. Also, there is extra credit on the problem sets and I went to my TAs office hours a lot, and she basically helped me do every problem set. Furthermore, she is so helpful during office hours and even has a tutor if anyone needs the extra help. I would take the other reviews with a grain of salt regarding the whole final exam thing because her hands truly were tied when the Academic Senate first released the statement that professors had to give a final exam. She has been really understanding and flexible the entire quarter and ended up letting us choose to use our midterm exam grade to be our final exam grade as well. Honestly, if you walk in knowing that you will have to actually work hard in the course, you'll do well. The curve is also really good like she understands that the course is hard and tells us that if we get around a B on the midterm, we're in a good spot.
Winter 2020 - Yes, this course is challenging; however, there has been significant improvement from what I heard the class was like last year. This was my first economics course ever and I felt like I was actually gaining something from the course and that it wasn't as terrible as previous reviews had made it seem. Professor Bau does go quite fast in her lecture, but everything is very on par with what is in the textbook so if you even skim the readings or read the summary at the end of each chapter, you'll understand her lectures a lot better. There is also a free PDF of the textbook online, albeit a different version, but it didn't make a difference to me. Her problem sets are difficult; however, she encourages group work and the midterm and final is basically the same thing as the problem sets, just with different numbers. 9 people got perfect scores on the midterm, pre-curve, which just shows how the course is not impossible. Also, there is extra credit on the problem sets and I went to my TAs office hours a lot, and she basically helped me do every problem set. Furthermore, she is so helpful during office hours and even has a tutor if anyone needs the extra help. I would take the other reviews with a grain of salt regarding the whole final exam thing because her hands truly were tied when the Academic Senate first released the statement that professors had to give a final exam. She has been really understanding and flexible the entire quarter and ended up letting us choose to use our midterm exam grade to be our final exam grade as well. Honestly, if you walk in knowing that you will have to actually work hard in the course, you'll do well. The curve is also really good like she understands that the course is hard and tells us that if we get around a B on the midterm, we're in a good spot.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - Lectures are discussion based where we would talk about important academic papers in development economics that we were supposed to read before coming to class. You were not expected to understand the methodology in detail too much as it is pretty mathematical most of the time. I think if you are interested in learning to read and think about academic papers in economics, this course is excellent and I could not recommend it enough, even if you are not interested in development economics. You also get some exposure to Stata which is cool for the problem sets and the final project. It certainly isn't enough to teach you anything more than an introductory level of Stata, but it is still good. The class graded on these problem sets in Stata (one of which was kinda reproducing the results of a paper we read in class but simplified), a final research project that did not have to deal with endogeneity entirely, and policy briefings which are where you recommend certain policies or note important things to consider when designing a randomized controlled trial using what you learned from reading the papers in class. My perception is that everyone in the class got an A or something close to that. The professor makes everything super understandable. The workload was about 40 or so pages of academic papers each lecture, which would take me several hours usually but I took notes over the papers generally. I do think that lectures were kinda strange because they seemed to summarize a lot of what you would read, but the discussion questions were really the most valuable part of going to lecture because you got to think about things like identification problems and think critically. One last thing I will mention is that this class is also a graduate course for public policy or something. The graduate students were not actually that intimidating. If you've taken some econometrics you are probably not too far behind them. I partnered with two graduate students for the problem sets, policy briefings, and final project and in my humble opinion, I contributed meaningfully to all of them.
Spring 2021 - Lectures are discussion based where we would talk about important academic papers in development economics that we were supposed to read before coming to class. You were not expected to understand the methodology in detail too much as it is pretty mathematical most of the time. I think if you are interested in learning to read and think about academic papers in economics, this course is excellent and I could not recommend it enough, even if you are not interested in development economics. You also get some exposure to Stata which is cool for the problem sets and the final project. It certainly isn't enough to teach you anything more than an introductory level of Stata, but it is still good. The class graded on these problem sets in Stata (one of which was kinda reproducing the results of a paper we read in class but simplified), a final research project that did not have to deal with endogeneity entirely, and policy briefings which are where you recommend certain policies or note important things to consider when designing a randomized controlled trial using what you learned from reading the papers in class. My perception is that everyone in the class got an A or something close to that. The professor makes everything super understandable. The workload was about 40 or so pages of academic papers each lecture, which would take me several hours usually but I took notes over the papers generally. I do think that lectures were kinda strange because they seemed to summarize a lot of what you would read, but the discussion questions were really the most valuable part of going to lecture because you got to think about things like identification problems and think critically. One last thing I will mention is that this class is also a graduate course for public policy or something. The graduate students were not actually that intimidating. If you've taken some econometrics you are probably not too far behind them. I partnered with two graduate students for the problem sets, policy briefings, and final project and in my humble opinion, I contributed meaningfully to all of them.
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