ECON 4420

The best Econ professor at UVa.
I used to believe that the econ model was useless as reality is hard to predict. He showed me how to use the model to connect different theorems. I spent several hours trying to reject his models with real-world cases, but I often failed. The class is different from any other ECON class which only has endless dry boring theorems. The applications would be the best part of this course.
Honestly, I learned a lot from this class. If you wish to be an ECON investor (not the kind of investor from the comm school), you have to take this class to have a whole picture of what the economy is.
If one-day UVa decides to open a macroeconomic concentration, I would vote for Professor Eric to be the dean.

The course was graded based on written homework assignments (done with a partner), participation, and a final exam. The material is extremely dense, especially if you do not have a strong math background. But the grading heavily weights homework assignments and participation over the exam, so if you are willing to go to office hours to make sure all your homework answers are right and talk in class it is pretty easy to get an A-/A. You might feel lost in the sauce midway through the class, but by the end it all comes together and you really do gain an understanding of the bigger macroeconomic picture. Also, Leeper is a great lecturer and really cares that his students are learning.

Great class. Prof. Leeper gives challenging assignments and his lectures can sometimes be hard to follow as the content is pretty dense, but he always makes himself available to help, and his assignments really contribute to your mastery of the content. Challenging course but you'll learn a lot and do well if you do the work. Leeper is also pretty funny.