Guide to my version of the Perron Code
One important purpose of codes is to rapidly communicate a complicated message with a short signal.
Pierre Perron has long used a mapping between course grades and statements about subsequent research work that I find useful.
I am adopting the following variant for grade determination in my portion of second year macroeconomics courses, effective Fall 2007
| Grade | Message |
| A | I would be thrilled to work with you on thesis research, conditional on our finding a topic of mutual scientific interest. |
| A- | I would be very pleased to work with you on thesis research, conditional on our finding a topic of mutual scientific interest. |
| B+ | Macroeconomics may not be your strongest research field or you may be a late bloomer that flourishes during dissertation research |
| B | It is quite likely that your best option will be to work in an area other than macroeconomics |
| B- | I strongly recommend that you work in another area besides macroeconomics |
Grading in my part of second year classes will be based on (a) a referee report, 15%; (b) a research proposal, 20%; (c) a computational project, 15%; and (d) a final examination, 50%. You will have two hours to do my part of the final in-class examination if I am teaching one-half of EC741 as I will be in Fall 2007.