Spring 2027

Contemporary Economic Issues

Contemporary Economic Issues covers varying topics on current developments in all fields of economics, applying economic reasoning to contemporary questions and settings.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Elizabeth Kelly

The workload was described as really heavy at the beginning and middle of the semester, but became pretty light by the end.

What you’ll be able to do

  • apply economic reasoning to contemporary questions and settings

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

ECON 101 or 111

ECON 390

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DAVID JOHNSON is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

ELIZABETH KELLY is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

GEOFFREY WALLACE is recorded teaching in Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

GWYN PAULEY is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2019. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

RASMUS LENTZ is recorded teaching in Spring 2011, Spring 2012. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Elizabeth Kelly

Students described the class as enjoyable with live optional discussions, though some found the workload heavy early in the semester.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 96.3% A/AB (n=27 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.40 GPA, 64.2% A/AB (n=67 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.20 GPA, 50.0% A/AB (n=30 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Elizabeth Kelly

The workload was described as really heavy at the beginning and middle of the semester, but became pretty light by the end.

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

One student found the grading rubric vague and noted that they received zero feedback on rough drafts or other assignments.

Topics

  • Current developments in all fields of economics.
  • Contemporary economic questions and settings.

Skills

  • Apply economic reasoning to contemporary questions and settings.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 4 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.18 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c86630d1e4489ab57ce9887c3aa5b95e217145f33bb409c5a931bc86d5570542",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}