Spring 2027

International Macroeconomics

Covers international macroeconomics, focusing on the exchange of financial instruments like currencies and bonds, and analyzing how national policies create spillover effects in global markets.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Stella Chan4.0/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

The course involved a heavy volume of content and formulas that students were expected to memorize. Some found the first month particularly intense, while others noted that missing a lecture made catching up difficult.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe how foreign exchange markets work and use interest and purchasing power parity theories to describe how changes in the economic environment affect exchange rates.

  • Connect unbalanced trade in goods to trade in financial assets and understand the link between trade deficits/surpluses and a country’s net international investment position.

  • Access and analyze data on cross-country asset flows and exchange rates.

  • Use economic theory to interpret policies such as the Bretton Woods agreement, the Euro, and Argentina’s fixed exchange rate regime.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

ECON 302 or 312

ECON 461

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

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.12/5 from 51 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 4.3/5 raw quality · 3.4/5 difficulty · 8 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

Students described Stella Chan's lectures as clear or enjoyable, with useful notes, clear grading, and exams that reflected practice material. They disagreed on difficulty: some found the workload manageable or the class easy, while others called the content hard and said missing lectures made catching up difficult.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 960
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 240
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 240
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 240
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 240

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

Professor Chan taught this course with clear expectations and helpful explanations. Students described the content as conceptually challenging but manageable if you attended lectures and completed the required work.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.01 GPA, 40.7% A/AB (n=86 letter grades); Spring 2025: 2.92 GPA, 39.8% A/AB (n=88 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.01 GPA, 40.3% A/AB (n=77 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

The course involved a heavy volume of content and formulas that students were expected to memorize. Some found the first month particularly intense, while others noted that missing a lecture made catching up difficult.

Past student reviews · Stella Chan

Students found exams very similar to the practice material and discussion sheets provided by Professor Chan. Lectures were described as enjoyable and clear, with helpful notes that made the material easier to understand.

Topics

  • International exchange of financial instruments including currencies, bonds, equities, and derivatives.
  • Spillover effects of national economic decisions and policies on other markets.
  • Interest and purchasing power parity theories for exchange rates.
  • Trade deficits/surpluses and net international investment position.
  • Case studies of Bretton Woods, the Euro, and Argentina's fixed exchange rate regime.

Skills

  • Apply interest and purchasing power parity theories to explain exchange rate movements.
  • Analyze the relationship between trade balances and net international investment positions.
  • Access and analyze datasets related to cross-country asset flows and exchange rates.
  • Interpret historical and contemporary monetary policies using economic theory.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

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
ECON 461 · Spring 2027

International Macroeconomics

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:296:025347",
    "course_id": "ECON 461",
    "course_uid": "course_2b848d4abf1c08fee50e22c2",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "025347",
    "source_subject_id": "296",
    "title": "International Macroeconomics",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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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": "837473153a0571c0c028392cb00d2dfb318793445724bc2bfe72772c43fe7ed6",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}