CHRISTOPHER GIBSON
Teaching
My teaching philosophy
I taught university students from 2013 - 2020 as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Columbia University and as a Lecturer at the University of California, San Diego. I find that, while knowledgeability is a requisite for any teacher, empathy is required to be an effective teacher. The ability to empathise with students as I explain concepts enables me to take their perspective, understand what they have absorbed, and bridge the conceptual gap that separates us. This dynamic facilitates teaching strategies that target students' individual strengths and weaknesses, leading to a unique sense of pride every time I witness that "aha" moment.
University of California, San Diego
Principles of Microeconomics
An introduction to Microeconomics
introducing the standard economic models used to examine how households and firms make
decisions in perfectly competitive markets, and how these decisions affect supply and demand
in output markets.
Principles of Macroeconomics
An introductory course in Macroeconomics covering
economy-wide topics
including unemployment, inflation, business cycles, monetary, and fiscal policy.
Financial Markets
An introduction to financial markets covering the institutional structure and functioning of financial markets, investors’ portfolio decisions, and the basic risk-return trade-off as a market equilibrium. Introduces a variety of asset classes including stocks, bonds, cash instruments, and derivatives.
Columbia University
Principles of Economics
A course introducing basic economic concepts, models and ideas, while providing the tools to better understand how the economy works. Introduces both Microeconomics, which looks at the choices of individuals (households and firms), and Macroeconomics, which looks at the aggregate behavior of the economy.
The Economics of Risk and Uncertainty
An advanced course in Microeconomics introducing decisions made under uncertainty regarding future outcomes. Risk and risk-aversion are rigorously defined and motivate the study of expected utility theory, insurance, portfolio choice, principle-agent problems, signaling/screening, and information theories of financial intermediation.
Intermediate Microeconomics
A second course in Microeconomics which takes a deeper look into the decisions of households and firms that comprise the larger economy. A detailed examination of the economic models underlying these decisions motivates fundamental economic results and predictions.
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Microeconomic Analysis I
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A first course in the PhD Microeconomics sequence investigating household and firm behaviour at a granular level. Theorems are presented and proven regarding the theory of choice and applied to consumers and producers. These motivate the rigorous study of general equilibrium under uncertainty and its welfare implications.