As a former economics tutor, I have helped many economics university students improve their grades. Many have achieved first class degrees, including higher firsts or top ranks, including at top UK universities like Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Exeter and more.
My advice is based on my experience studying Economics at Cambridge, going on to a Distinction in the Master’s.
Following this, I have built up a collection of tips. These tips have helped my previous students improve their economics undergraduate degree courses.
Microeconomics
- Practise utility maximisation and cost minimisation for standard and more complex functions. The standard results (Cobb-Douglas utility functions, for example) are good to know and understand. They appear very often throughout an undergraduate degree. One way examiners can make questions difficult is by increasing mathematical complexity.
- Another type of question relates to “comparative statics“. In other words, if you change the value of one parameter in the model, how does that affect the model outcomes? For example, if a consumer’s income doubles, how does that affect which goods the consumer buys? Practise comparative statics – these will often involve calculus.
- Understand the intuition behind the mathematical results. What are the underlying mechanisms in the model that lead to the result? Are there tradeoffs or competing mechanisms? Why does one mechanism dominate or cancel out the other? Key results to understand include the “marginality” conditions, such as marginal revenue = marginal cost. Or the (absolute) marginal rate of substitution equals the price ratio.
- Learn and understand key formulae e.g. equivalent variation and compensating variation. If you can understand these formulae, then you will have an easier time learning them. This is better than blunt memorisation without understanding.
- Bear in mind the big picture. For example, it is easy to get lost in the process of utility maximisation and wonder why we are doing this at all. But utility maximisation is a base step in the process. It allows us to derive demand curves. Demand curves then allow us to estimate welfare, e.g. consumer surplus. We can then evaluate the effects of policy changes, such as tax changes, on welfare, to work out how to improve welfare.
- Game theory – practise solving lots of different games, including static and dynamic games.
- The “completeness” of a proof or mathematical response is important for some (not all) university courses. In this case, make sure your proof is “complete”, in other words it has the necessary steps and answers the question. An example of this is some university microeconomics requiring you to prove that the stationary point found is indeed a maximum. In this instance, a second derivative test (or for multivariate functions, using the “Hessian matrix”) will be important.
Macroeconomics
- Macro has a lot of graphs of economic models. In the short run models, there can be several different curves and graphs at once. This includes the IS-LM, AS-AD models or variants of those. Try to understand what each curve represents separately, (IS, LM, AS, AD, for example) as well as how the curves fit together (the big picture).
- Now consider long run growth (Solow, Harrod-Domar, extensions of Solow). Understand the key steps of these models. For deriving the Solow model’s key results, break down the proof into seven or eight key steps. Understand why each step is necessary and the relations between steps.
- Consider extensions of each model. Think about what problem the extension is trying to solve and how the extension changes the derivation steps.
- Like in micro, bear in mind the importance of comparative statics. If you double a parameter for example, how does that influence the model’s outcomes? You should be able to explain using maths and intuitively.
Maths and Stats (including econometrics)
- Practise using the regression techniques you learn. If you can, learn an econometric program, like R. This is a useful skill to have in industry but also it will help you see how different regression techniques affect the outcomes.
- At the same time, make sure to understand why you are using these regression techniques (or where they come from). Where do the least squares regression equations come from? What is the purpose of an instrumental variable? Understanding these questions will help fit the techniques together. For theory based courses, understanding the steps of a proof is important. But for more practical courses, the choice of technique will matter too.
- Sometimes you may begin to learn mathematical techniques, such as differential equations. But you may not be sure how to apply it to economics. Bear in mind you may be more likely to use these techniques in later years. Often in the first year, you learn a lot of “building block” concepts, including in micro and macro. But this will help with the next years’ content. So be patient and work out how it fits in with other concepts.
Essays
Essay questions will often involve a lot a reading, then the process of writing up the essay.
Reading the literature can be a big time sink.
So share the effort of reading – split up readings with others, then share each others’ notes on the readings or talk through them together. This can save lots of time.
Some of the essays will require an explanation of a key economic theory. Writing out an entire mathematical proof may take up too much space in an essay. Therefore, focus on the key conditions and implications of the theory.
Extra papers beyond the given readings, where relevant, can help boost the essay scores.
Use mind maps / essay plans to help prepare for essay based exams.
[If requested, I can write more separately on dissertations or projects where you are deciding your own topic.]
Start early
Start learning the course, before your course starts.
Why? Well there are three key reasons:
- Learning before your course starts means you likely know the most of the content before your lectures. So in term time you can focus on higher order skills or ironing out the details. Hence by the end of term, you understand the content better and will be more likely to do well on the exam.
- It also supports content scaffolding (see below).
- It helps manage the stress of term time. For some universities, the term time period can be very intense, with a high workload. Spreading out the work helps manage this.
How do you this? If you have previous year’s lecture notes or problem sets, use those.
But suppose you don’t have lecture notes. You can find the course textbooks and use those for example. Not having the lecture notes is not an excuse.
Particularly for economics, there are a lot of new theories. It’s good to have seen these before starting. This prevents the first term feeling overwhelming.
Content scaffolding
A great way to begin is by creating content scaffolding.
From a quick flick through the textbook or course lecture, write down a list of key terms and ideas.
Then try to fit them overall into a structure of how you think the course will be structured. This is likely to be partially right and partially wrong. But you can always update it later.
But this kind of content scaffolding makes it easier to learn stuff later on. An hour of pre-study can save several hours more later on.
Flashcards
For key details that need memorisation, flashcards can be helpful. Some students use online flashcards like Anki. Others make their own.
Flashcards allow for active recall and spaced repetition. Hence they help with retention of information.
But there is a risk of overusing flashcards or not using them well. You can end up spending most of your time writing flashcards rather than actually using them, for example.
As a result, I recommend only using flashcards for those details that need rote memorisation.
Complete extra questions
The problem sets are the first questions that most students attempt. It is good to review these questions later on too.
But don’t just do the problem sets.
Past papers are often very valuable. Do questions from these both in term time and nearer the exam.
Other sources of questions can include textbooks or extra practice questions online.
Practice tests are also proven to boost grades on average.
Learn to encode and generate relevance
How do you learn a new, difficult concept? How do you understand a page of content?
Yes, once you understand something, you can use active recall and spaced repetition to commit it to memory. This could involve some type of flashcard system for the details you need to learn.
But to understand something complex in the first place, “encoding” is a way to make this more efficient.
To improve encoding and retention, it is important to make the information seem more “relevant” to you. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Ask higher level questions (“inquiry based learning”) to teachers or to yourself. Rather than asking what is this concept, instead ask why is this concept important or relevant? Or how can I apply this concept? What link does it have with other content? Higher level questions can allow you to engage with the idea more deeply, enabling better understanding.
- Be curious in general. Curiosity can be useful, particularly when dealing with long mathematical proofs.
- Some students will naturally have curiosity about a certain area. Where you don’t have curiosity, you can try to “force” it through asking questions to yourself.
- For example, where does the Lagrangian or some other key expression come from?
- Why is this step important in the proof?
- Curiosity is a great motivator and can also make the material feel more relevant. Ask and solve your own questions.
- Understand relationships or links between concepts.
- A. For example, the utility maximisation problem leads to the condition that the absolute marginal rate of substitution equals the price ratio.
- B. For a Cobb-Douglas function, this means demand for a good is decreasing in price – higher price means lower demand.
- C. This gives the demand curve. Then the demand curve allows us to calculate consumer surplus.
- D. So we can calculate welfare changes when there is a tax.
- E. We can also link across different topics. A similar condition to step A holds in the cost minimisation problem.
- This way, we see how a topic or mathematical property or step fits into a bigger picture.
- This makes it more relevant to you, so you’re more likely to retain the information.
- Rearrange the order of information. Lectures tend to present information in a particular linear way. But if you want to start learning in a different order that helps you learn better, do so!
Build healthy habits outside of studying
This includes eating healthily, as well as exercise and sleep. Lots of people will say this but far fewer will implement it.
Be well organised and manage time well.
Improve your learning process
You should think about how to learn. This is called metacognition. A small bit of time invested in how to learn may reduce the study time required later on.
Here the first step is to be aware of the techniques you are using for each module. See if they work for you in the exams or not.
If they don’t work, consider changing your learning method.
Secondly, look into the research or advice on how to learn. I have referenced a lot of this information throughout. There are also some papers at the bottom of this article as a starting point (though by no means am I an expert).
Typically the psychology, education and medicine students seem to be most aware of the academic evidence here. In my view, taking this information onboard as economics students and teachers can help improve student outcomes.
Clarify any content you do not understand
Suppose you have a piece of course content, that you don’t get.
First, try to understand it yourself.
But if you cannot, then ask someone else. This could be another student, a lecturer or a teaching assistant. Use the internet too or visit office hours.
Office hours are underrated generally. But make sure to come prepared with the questions you are looking to answer.
A final thought on setting goals
This article has assumed that a goal is to improve your grade. As a former tutor, this is the goal that students present me with most often.
But I have not discussed whether that should be your goal.
Consider what you want out of the university experience. This could be something other than a grade, such as getting a job afterwards or enjoying your time at university, building a network and so on.
In any case, I would argue that saving time studying or doing better on an exam, will be helpful. But do think about what you want from university – the answers will be different for everyone.
Related posts
More to be added…
If you are considering applying to UK Economics undergraduate courses, check out the link here.
If there are any undergraduate economics posts or resources you would like to see, please feel free to contact me at tomftutor@gmail.com.
Disclaimer
Following such tips does not “guarantee” an outcome for a particular student. Other things affect outcomes such as effort (quantity and quality), luck of the day and other factors.
Nevertheless these are the kind of tips that have helped my previous students. I hope you can find something helpful here too!
Reference
A good reference summary to read is linked here [external link]. The authors group techniques into high, medium and low utility – a good starting point.
Here is a reference on practice tests or quizzes. Some strong evidence, including on what makes an effective quiz.
About the author
