Spring 2027

Economics of Growth

A theoretical course analyzing economic growth and development through models motivated by country experiences, covering saving, investment, institutions, technology, and trade.

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

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · Simeon Alder

Simeon Alder’s homework took 6-8 hours each, with six assignments closely mirroring class content.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Summarize the salient stylized facts about growth and development in the post-World War II global economy.

  • Use econometric methods to identify the proximate and fundamental sources of economic growth and international income differences.

  • Use established economic models to analyze the major economic and demographic transitions from pre-industrial stagnation to today's modern growth economy.

  • Apply the principles of endogenous growth theory to identify and analyze the conditions for sustained long-term growth.

  • Apply the basic principles of dynamic programming to solve versions of the canonical neoclassical growth model and other dynamic macroeconomic models numerically.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

(ECON 301 or ECON 311), (ECON 302 or ECON 312) and (MATH 217 or 221); or graduate/professional standing

ECON 475

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

MARIA MUNIAGURRIA is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SIMEON ALDER is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. 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

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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 · Simeon Alder

Simeon Alder taught ECON 475 with lots of math, and one student said it suited students interested in economic growth or research, not industry.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.87 GPA, 94.3% A/AB (n=35 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.36 GPA, 57.5% A/AB (n=40 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.24 GPA, 54.1% A/AB (n=37 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Simeon Alder

Simeon Alder’s homework took 6-8 hours each, with six assignments closely mirroring class content.

Past student reviews · Maria Muniagurria

Maria Muniagurria’s accent and quiet voice made lectures difficult to follow, but her notes were straightforward and her practice tests were very similar to midterms/final.

Topics

  • Factors affecting saving, investment, and cross-country income differentials.
  • The role of government institutions, market regulation, technology, and trade.
  • Endogenous growth theory and conditions for sustained long-term growth.
  • Economic and demographic transitions from pre-industrial stagnation to modern growth.

Skills

  • Applying econometric methods to analyze sources of economic growth.
  • Solving dynamic macroeconomic models using numerical dynamic programming techniques.
  • Conducting theoretical analysis of growth and development issues using country-experience-motivated models.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— 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 Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · 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

1316 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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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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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
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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": "3bd51a57c92b5b5192eb410a24fa51f6de76534d00cae02c353049625425e1fd",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}