I am enrolled in the 1-year course-based program: Master of Arts, Economics, at the Vancouver School of Economics (VSE), in the University of British Columnbia (UBC). It's plausibly one of the best economics gradschools in Canada. I will briefly introduce the structure of the programme, and go through the information of the courses I have taken there.
August - September (Math Camp)
The 1-month online Math Camp aims to help students obtain the necessary math for the program:
Basic Python: operations, building vectors and matrix, data frame, for loops, linear algebra calculation.
Linear Algebra: system of equations, invertible matrix theorem, least squares solutions, application to econometrics.
Introduction of Proof: proof operators, proof structure, method of proof.
Basic Calculus: taking derivative, partial derivative, intergral, formula, L'Hopital's rules.
Optimization: Lagrangian, Taylor theorem, Implicit Function Theorem.
Basic Micro&Macro: Marshallian & Hicksian Demand, Envelop Theorem, DSGE.
There's no compulsory assignments nor exams. But some practices are provided. For students who have never taken any math in college, learning some linear algebra is strongly advised. Actually, VSE also mentions that (here) but stilling taking some students admitted who don't have such math background. For those who don't have solid math background, I recommend the materials as below. I think they are pretty much substituable for the math camp (but I still recommend attending the math camp as it's pretty much a privellage to know each other before the program and "wake up" for the later intensive study):
Linear Algebra (~=UBC Math 221):
https://www.3blue1brown.com/topics/linear-algebra (This one provides the most intuition)
https://linear.axler.net/ (Traditional Textbook)
https://github.com/kenjihiranabe/The-Art-of-Linear-Algebra (This one is popular)
Multivariable Calculus (~=UBC Math 200):
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-02-multivariable-calculus-fall-2007/ (Dr. Denis Auroux is really good at teaching this)
Computation and Optimization (~=UBC ECON 420):
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-13748-8 (Really easy to read and I used it as a tool book. There are many other books as well.)
Of course, econometrics is also really important albeit not being the main theme of the math camp. Textbooks like Mostly Harmless Econometrics and Mastering Metrics by Angrist and Pischke are so classic and famous that no recommendation from me is needed I guess. There are other books and websites I like, e.g. https://bookdown.org/mike/data_analysis/ by Nguyen, and https://metricsf20.classes.ryansafner.com/schedule/ by Safner are also pretty nice. If you need further reading of math recommendation or the perspective of people who have already done math (and good at math), I recommend searching econ faculty's personal website. For example, I find the advice from Dr. Jesse Perla and Dr. Jonathan Graves really helpful! They are really nice people to talk to and on their website, there are many other useful resources! Their math recommendation links are below:
https://www.jesseperla.com/post/ubc-course-advice/
https://jonathanlgraves.arts.ubc.ca/advice-on-mathematics/
September - December (1st Term, 4 required courses)
ECON 500 - Microeconomics - Dr. Vitor Farinha Luz
This course aims to provide a comprehensive introduction of micro-theory, so it is not really different from the ECON101 or intermediate micro but being a bit more mathy - consumer & firm theory, partial equilibrium, game theory, etc. Throughout the course, we have had 8 problem sets (almost one problem set per week), and they are indeed challenging if you are not familiar with the materials in the first place. I strongly suggest (actually most of the instructor suggest it as well) discussing the question and your answers with classmates. Of course, the submission should be your own work with your own thoughts. Another suggestion for assignments of all courses will be: do not start too early, but make sure you understand everything you have learnt first. There have been some times I started the assignments too early without fully understanding of the materials, and I had to go back and changes the answer I put down earlier. Starting early is a good choice, but please do not rush!
Although the assignment and materials are hard, Dr. Vitor is a wonderful microeconomics theorist! He provides wonderful intuition and real life applications to all kinds of topics. The textbook is not necessarily required, because Dr. Victor has provided wonderful lecture slides and notes. But I would like to recommend a famous textbook: Mas-Colell, Andreu, Michael Dennis Whinston, and Jerry R. Green. “Microeconomic theory”. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford university press (or MWG). It is used by most of the graduate program. Another textbook, despite not being as advanced, is recommended as well: Geoffrey A. Jehle and Philip J. Reny, “Advanced Microeconomic Theory”, Addison Wesley, Third edition.
ECON 502 - Macroeconomics - Dr. Viktoriya Hnatkovska
Similarly, this course introduce the macroeconomics at graduate level. I would say this is different from the macro principle and intermediate macro in terms of methodology and philosophy (kind of?). We went through the historic macro data, firms and growth, consumption, employment, saving, asset pricing, general equilibrium, growth model (Malthusian, Solow-Swan, RCK, AK), and real business cycle. The course is optimization-heavy, i.e., we used a lot of lagrangian, hamiltonian, and other tools to find out the equilibrium, saddle path, steady state, and etc. We also had some coding practice like Matlab and Dynare, which is important in macroeconomics. The main difference between undergrad macro and gradschool macro is the focus - gradschool macro is more realistic and micro-founded (thanks to Lucus critique). But the course is master-level, so the there are still some part omitted like the heterogeous agent model. From that being said, we only pay attention to "representative" agents.
Dr. Viktoriya control the pace of the course pretty well, and in my opinion, Dr. Viktoriya knows everything that she is teaching. Some may find the teaching methodology a bit traditional, but as a risk averse individual, I am a bit fan of such structural and clear teaching. We had some readings (academic journal and news) selected, and the textbook that we are using is "Advanced Macroeconomics", 4th edition, David Romer, McGraw-Hill. I do notice that some gradschool program uses other textbook as this is a bit outdated as I heard from the PhDs. For me, this works just fine. If you are looking for something more cutting-edge, you may find this helpful: https://phdmacrobook.org/tableofcontents/
ECON 526 - Quantitative Economics with Data Science Applications - Dr. Jesse Perla & Dr. Paul Schrimpf
This is one of the most useful course I have taken, and shout out to Dr. Jesse for making this wonderful course! Dr. Paul is also really nice! I won't say a lot for this part as the information is available online (Github). Basically, it is a econometrics course with a focus on 1. how to deal with data and the linear algebra intuition behind it, and 2. empirical causal inference. The theoretic side of econometrics is delivered on ECON 527.
There are some wonderful materials we used in this class though. In the first part of the course, we use the material published on the course Github and the QuantEcon. In the second part, we used the CausalML Book and the Causal Inference for The Brave and True (which is more fun of a read and less intensive). They are all free online.
ECON 527 - Econometrics - Dr. Kyungchul Song
This course is designed to provide econometrics methods from theory. We focus on the identification, estimation, and asymptotic inference. Apart from that, we are also equipped with some statistics inference skills. We had a bit of the review of probability and statistics at the beginning, and then we dive right into regression model as a predictive / causal (IV), and potential outcome as a causal model (RCT, DiD, Propensity Score Matching).
Dr. Song is really good at teaching! The course material is indeed challenging (Yes the jump from the bachelor to master per se. I am never tired to say this.) but Dr. Song is always there to help us. In the course, we are provided the textbook written by Dr. Song, and it is so well-written and fascinated me to build the interests towards econometrics before the final exam... Of course, there are some auxiliary materials like Econometrics (by Hayashi), Econometric Analysis (by Greene), and Econometric Theory and Methods (by Davidson and MacKinnon).
January - April (2nd Term, 4 electives)
After surviving the intense first term, the second one is more chill and we have the flexibility of choosing different field courses. Of course, if you are ambitious and want to signal your ability of doing a phd, taking phd courses (harder and more informative version of term 1) is not uncommon. Also, if you are interested in the thesis stream (which is 2 years in which the second year is used as your research and some RA stuff in order to work as a Pre-Doc in some sense), it is a good time to chat with the faculty.
Another thing is that the term 2 courses put PhD and Master students in the same classroom, so the grading rubrics are a bit different. For example, in one of the course, the MA students have 80% of their grades from the midterms but for the PhD students, the main part would be research proposal, paper, and presentation.
ECON 544 - Political Economics - Dr. Nathan Nunn
I am always a big fan of Nathan. The way he intergrate anthropology and other types of social sciences into economics is just wonderful. I can still remember the first paper I read in ECON234 was his slave trade paper. This course, rather than being political economics, is more like a economics history course where context and history are the main topics, i.e., standing at the cultural, anthropological, and historical context to understand, explain, and solve the economics issue. The reading of this course is definitely a lot, and exams are based on these papers. From my perspective, reading abstract, introduction, and conclusion would be enough to get the big picture.
ECON 546 - Monetary Theory and Policy - Dr. Paul Beaudry
Paul is knowledgable and passionate about teaching. He served as the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, so in his class we have learnt monetary policy models and solve problems both theoretically and discussed how it would be applied (or how would it work or whether it would work at all) in the reality. We used a lot of knowledge and methodology from ECON 502 so if you enjoy that as well as how the Central Bank works, this course would be wonderful for you.
ECON 523 - Behavioural Economics - Dr. Matt Lowe
This is one of the most interesting class I have taken. Matt calibrates some psychology into economics and teaches them pretty well. For those who are interested in how people act "irrationally", which is the opposite as what we economists assume, this course would be really fun. At the end of the class, we are required to either do a presentation in a topic that we like, and it would be a great chance to explore what is unanswered or use what we have learnt to solve the issues in the real world.
ECON 550 - Public Economics - Dr. Marit Rehavi
It is a more serious and depressing class becasue we talked a lot about the market failure and government failure like insurance, but Marit teaches it in a professional way. The punchline of this course is basically moral hazards and self-interests, i.e., how the existence of insurance "incentivizes" people to act in a way that do harm to themselves, and how insurance (as well as government sometimes) fixes that issue.
May - August (Summer Term, Applied & Paper)
A couple weeks before the end of Term 2 (in the beginning of April), students would be reached out to self-select into thesis stream or not. In order to be in the thesis stream, students have to find an advisor. I sticked with the original stream where the last part of this journey is the summer paper.
ECON 594 - Applied Economics - Dr. Sam Norris
Apr 20, 2025
In Richmond, BC, Canada