How was my experience at the SSEF 2021, and how to survive in it?

How was my experience at the SSEF 2021, and how to survive in it?

by Annie Caballero Lazarte

My experience in the Summer School in Economics and Finance (SSEF) 2021 was gratifying, challenging, and exciting. In this opportunity, I would like to share my experience with the Intertemporal Macro and Finance course.

In my opinion, I found that this course has been one of the most interesting and perhaps one of the most challenging courses that I have attended. Learning stochastic models, comparisons between Arrow Debreu equilibria and sequential markets, touching the topics of Asset Prices in Endowment Economies, Consumption CAPM, and other models, was significantly enriching.

However, the most exciting topics that I enjoyed were Recursive Problems: The Bellman Equation in stochastic models (Markov Processes). We had to use the value function Iteration like the primary methodology to get the solution. We use this technique to solve models with incomplete markets. In this topic, the agents cannot perfectly insure against income shocks without Arrow Debreu securities.

Some recommendations that I could give to the new students of the next Summer School in Economics and Finance (coming in 2022) based on my experience would be the following.

First, you should put a lot of desire and effort from the beginning of the course because it may seem that the introductory topics are straightforward. However, suddenly you realize that you no longer understand the subject. Sometimes it happened to me. That is why I share it with you.

The second recommendation would be that you should have the Rstudio, Eviews, and Matlab programs on your computer or laptop before the course starts. These help you avoid any problems in getting and installing these programs in the course development.

My third recommendation would be that you should try to rely a lot on your group since some of you can understand some topics better, and you can explain or have better feedback among yourselves.

Finally, my last recommendation would be that if you have any doubt or any topic was not well understood, then without any fear, ask the professor either in the development of the class. You can do that through the zoom chat or activating the microphone, but if any doubt arose outside the lecture, you could also send emails to the professor with queries. In my experience, the professors always answered me and absolved all my doubts in a timely manner.

Well, that is what I could tell about my experience in the SSEF 2021, many successes to all of you.

Annie