After talking to quite a few people in this class, I think we all could agree that the reviews are a little too generous. Professor Lleras-Muney is such a nice and of course, knowledgeable professor. Her lectures are enjoyable for the most part (although I admit watching them at 2X speed after they were posted), but the biggest issue for this class was simply time. The midterm was very time constraint and there was simply too many questions that required a lot of explanations. Partial credit was generously given, but also taken away too easily. She had practice exams posted with the solutions and the solutions themselves were essay long answers. She did clarify that she was not expecting those kind of answers, that it was mostly to be complete, but that's what it felt like for the midterm. She was kind enough to add 9 points to our raw score so at least she saw that the expectations were a little too high. Another major point that is not emphasized enough in the previous reviews are group work. Super time consuming and you absolutely need to have at least one person in the group be comfortable with R, Stata, or whatever coding program you're using. This class is basically like a writing class because every group work assignment requires at least a 3 page memo. Now, this sounds easy, but she posts an outline of what she wants with a bunch of questions and most are very broad so you kinda have to pick and choose. It feels like you need to evaluate which are the most important questions and then supplement it with the correct graphs, etc. Presentations are not too bad, but the data problems and memos are very tedious so make sure your group is on top of things since assignments are due Friday @ 9am. The final..... so because of the midterm, she decided to make the final "take-home" aka she gave the final ahead of time & about a week and two days to do it. It was extremely time consuming and long. Depending on how many people you were working with (max 3), you had to answer at least 2 questions each worth 100 points.
One part was a 4 page essay, the second part was a 5 page data report memo, and the third part was mathematical computations (which were not even taught directly in class so you had to figure that out on your own). So, overall, I guess you just had to pick your poison and pick which two (or three if you were 3 people) parts you wanted to do. While it was super long, the scores and final grades were pretty high so it paid off. This class is definitely not a class you can just put in the back of your head since each week you have group work and presentations. The material is interesting which is a plus, and it's very relevant to how the government works and current economic policies. It's a nice change from theoretical classes that rely on models and formulas. This is a great class and you really do learn a lot from it, just be ready to spend a lot of time on busy work and presentations!

I've had the pleasure of taking this class for my last quarter at UCLA, and I cannot emphasize how much of a fantastic experience I had with this class. For one group presentations and debates are mandatory for you to receive credit for your discussion session. These projects are not super demanding, but you will be required to at least know some intermediate STATA commands to complete. The midterm and final were pretty much identical as the past exams she held. The TA's were the most helpful in the department, and the teacher genuinely cares about the class performance. Study slides religiously and redo the old exams a million times.

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One of the best classes I've taken at UCLA.
Professor Adriana gives clear, informative lectures. They are a bit slow, so my friends and I rewatched them at 2x speed and learned all the material.
There is a decent amount of work, as there is a group assignment every week. However, only the 2 data sets are very time consuming (around 10 hours), and the other assignments only took 2-5 hours each. I also had a good group. Knowing how to code certainly helps, especially in R/Stata. Without coding, you can't really do the 2 data sets that we were required to do.
The midterm was ok...it was a little long and time-consuming, and most people didn't finish. However, she let us resubmit a section with a partner, and she curved it by a lot (10%). So my score went from an 82 to over 100%.
The final was a take-home, group project that was about the length of 2 weekly group assignments. It was not too bad at all, and I got a 91.
Adriana makes every effort to give students a good grade in the class, as you can see from the grade distribution. If you do the work (which is a reasonable amount for an upper division UCLA course), you will succeed for sure.
Learned a lot in this class and would definitely recommend it!

Overall, this class was not one that you sign in for lecture and get an easy A. With that being said, she believes that if you put in the work, you will 100% get a good grade. From that, there are problem sets, one/two requiring code and the rest more paragraph form. There are also presentations throughout the quarter that are more based on participation rather than perfect information. Lastly, her tests were very long, but she made adjustments to them in order to help her students. While there was a lot that you had to put in, once I did, I didn't regret it because she made sure to give her students good grades.

Adriana is the best Econ professor in the department. I was so lucky to take her course, and she was knowledgeable and willing to answer all questions. We were expected to do group works, and people are required to learn R and Stata well. She gave us 9.5 extra credits to our midterm since she made it too long. She was very generous, and half of the class got A. Learned a lot about governmental policies.

This was one of my favorite econ classes I've taken at UCLA, both because of the material and the professor. Professor Adriana is very thorough in her lectures, so it's easy to understand everything she's saying. I personally found the material really interesting too, so that might have added to me paying attention. Her midterm and final were very straightforward, and she gives a lot of extra credit (she really wants everyone to succeed in her class, and 78% of students got an A- or higher this quarter). It's a pretty easy A, and if you decide not to go to lectures she also bruincasts them. I won't lie there was a lot of work for this class, predominantly in group projects. There are a couple data sets involving STATA that take up a lot of time (and the prompt is very vague so there isn't one exact way to answer it) and presentations you have to give based on a debate topic. But like she said in class, you gain a lot of skills through completing them that you can use in the real world (predominantly consulting & research I'd assume). If you don't mind group work, I highly recommend taking this class and more specifically Adriana

Professor Lleras-Muney is great! I learned a lot about public goods and public finance through this class. There is a midterm, final, and a discussion grade which includes various group projects. The TAs are VERY generous with partial credit on the exams, and basically all of it is taken straight from her lectures. The professor encourages participation and questions, and is always willing to go over material in lecture as well.

The group projects are weekly (except for exam weeks, holidays, and other cases). You form your group in the beginning of the quarter (usually from the same discussion) and stay together until the end. The projects vary from STATA work to presenting slides in class. Aside from the first week where the STATA work is difficult because you have to deal with IPUMS (a website where you extract your data) for the first time, the other STATA work is really easy. A lot of people dropped the class after the first week because of the first week STATA assignment but the second week on, it was quite easy. I was worried about the presentations in class because I absolutely hate public speaking but it was also easy and fast (they're about 5 minutes each).

I highly recommend this course as the professor actually cares about you learning. She even tells us at the beginning that she wants us to learn and not worry about grades so she'll be very generous with grading.

Taking her class has opened my eyes to my interest in learning more about Public Finance. Her lectures and presentations were very informative and engaging. I appreciated how she would take her time to answer any questions in class and would often go back to previous slides, if necessary. She would also elaborate on certain topics, without anyone having to ask the question, which I think is very crucial to being a good professor! Her midterm and final are both formatted in that there are all short answers. However, the TA's and her are very generous in giving out partial credits. During our quarter, we also had extra credits and "buddy" system opportunity given on the exams. Textbooks are not necessary, but they can help! Her slides and lectures were already very helpful. Overall, she was phenomenal, and I would love to take her course again!