ECON 4340

I would only recommend this course for students truly interested in financial theory. The material is semi-interesting, but his lectures are brutal. For a 75-min lecture, you know it's bad when you can tell, every lecture, exactly when 45 minutes have gone by. Besides that, he's not very transparent with the grading rubric on the exams, and exams are returned with very little (if any) comments. But, it is an easy class to catch up on. He wrote the required reading for the course; the reading is essentially transcripts of his lectures (or, at least, the important stuff less his tangents), so if you go to lecture there's practically no reading. Burton is an interesting, smart, well-respected professionally, devoted-to-UVA professor, but I would look elsewhere to take an advanced Econ course that could really stimulate you intellectually.

The easiest "high level" classes I've ever taken, you can easily get a B- without showing up by reading the textbook an hour a day the week before each exam.

The biggest problems with this class are:

1. The grad-school graders who aren't haven't taken the class and therefore can't interpret answers correctly. I had to argue for an extremely long time with a guy to get points back on an incorrectly-graded question.

2. An interest in financial THEORY is necessary to enjoy the lectures. If you're someone who just wants to get an A in a class with a marketable name you'll probably hate going to lecture because he talks about the mathematic and microeconomic bases for certain theories rather than teaching you about wall-street jargon. You're more likely to miss points if you can't grasp concavity then you are if you don't know about private equity.

3. Maybe the biggest problem is his absolute unwillingness to give less than a C. IDK how that one person got a C- above but they must have forgotten to show up to an exam. Many people don't pay attention the first few lectures, then most lectures will have less than 50% of people show up after the 1st midterm. It was kinda annoying to be around tons of people who literally had no idea what they were doing, and they were probably part of the reason the graders were such dicks during grading (one guy asked what risk-aversion was after 6 weeks of talking about it.) I wish he would fail the who get 5 standard deviations below the mean and maybe like 2% Ds and bring the rest of the grades up a little bit to differentiate between the clueless and the competent a little bit more. Might seem harsh but the average middle schooler with a copy of the textbook the night before would get higher score than some of these students.

If you want an overview of the most important topics in finance from someone who combines the academic perspective of a long time econ PhD with the fast faced, adrenaline-fueled wall street perspective, then it's the perfect class. If you're not in the comm school want to get a job in finance or banking, definitely take advantage to his connections to economists at federal reserves, contacts on wall street and ability to point you in the right direction for everything else.

This class is a lot like other reviews say. It is not the most interesting, but some of the content is important. Burton likes to ramble in lecture, so it moves quite slow. However, going to lecture makes studying for the tests really easy, especially because he overviews potential topics for the test. Because of the grading distribution, you can do well without going to class. However, class isn't horrible and I would recommend going and then just reading your notes to study for the midterms and final. Alternatively, you can also read the book, which he wrote. Both are good resources.

Burton is a GREAT Professor and individual. He is super knowledgeable and provides a ton of professional advice and assistance which is huge advantage. He also provides so much life advice.
The class itself is pretty straight forward.... It really doesn't matter whether you go to lecture or not, the SAME material is in the textbook and lecture. But, going to lectures there are more opportunities to go to dinner, lunch and trips with him. Also if you go to lectures he will give hints (wink wink nudge nudge) about important information for the test. But, also in lecture there are tangents that don't have much relevance to the material being tested. So, I would suggest going, but if you go and half pay attention that is also sufficient . After the first two months there will probably be 50 people show up to lecture out of a class of 200. The class is structured 3 exams; two midterms and a final. Each exam is structured with IDs and then Main concepts. I would say there is probably about 10 IDs and 5 short answer questions with multi parts per question. Just be careful with IDs sometimes the graders want really specific information. Also ALWAYS go to TAs to get corrections... people on here have said they hard, but tons of people have gotten points back so don't be lazy and not go! Information in the Powerpoints is super important and if you are cramming for the exam thats what I would say is essential to know for the exam. The averages for test are usually in the mid 80s. Math for this course is a minimial and save yourself time and don't read the summer reading he will most likely just scrap it by the time the semester is there.

If you are an Econ major- definitely take this course. It's not hard to get an A in as long as you do the readings. Tbh, I wouldn't do some of the readings till when we actually had to study for the exam and ended the class with an A since all the info on the tests comes from the textbook (by textbook I mean word documents averaging from 7-13 pages). I maybe looked at the powerpoint or notes a few times for info I could not figure out on my own. Also, his lectures are pretty interesting and he tells you important stuff you need to know for the exams. 10/10 would recommend going to lunch with him because he's a great person to talk to and cares about his students!

This course, with this professor, is wild. Burton is an amicable septuagenarian, who clearly has accomplished a lot in his career, but he really should not be teaching at this point. For one, his 'textbook' (which is a series of word docs he wrote) is riddled with errors, contradictions, and inconsistencies. For example, he asked for the definition of 'risk aversion' on an exam, and I gave the definition verbatim from the textbook, but did not receive full credit, because the TA said that definition was incomplete. Like, what? Second, the lectures themselves are rollercoasters of weirdness - the majority of what he says every class is irrelevant. Finally, the way grading is done is extremely dicey. Exams consist of definitions and free responses, and all grading is done by a gaggle of ECON TA's. But because Burton writes the exam questions so poorly (and teaches the course concepts so loosely and inconsistently), the feasible set of answers for questions is huge, but the set of answers the TAs are allowed to give credit to is small. So even the vigilant and studious student can get shafted when they know the concepts but don't use the correct buzzwords or explain things 'thoroughly' enough. At the end, Burton puts all the scores in to a mysterious black box and basically everyone gets an A, B or C. I had a B+ average from the first to MTs, got an A on the final, and got an A in the class, so happy about that, but not sure if it was worth all the stress and doubt I had through this. 2 mid-terms and a final, weighted 30/30/40.

I am absolutely flabbergasted by how positive the reviews on here are. NO ONE SHOULD SIGN UP FOR THIS AWFUL AWFUL CLASS. The review below me hit the nail on the head. Burton really should not be teaching.

To start, he made us read a 600 page book and didn’t even ask a single question about it. He wont use a mic in class which makes it extremely hard to hear his nonsensical ramblings. 80-90% of what is discussed in class is completely irrelevant. This class would more aptly be named BURT 4340 The History and Opinions of Edwin Burton and his Rich Friends. He literally spent all but 5 min of a lecture once rambling about himself and then said right before the class ended to just read the book chapter. The book isn’t helpful because its riddled with errors in grammar and content on top of pages of completely uncovered information. Test questions are very open-ended, often irrelevant and its almost impossible to know what Burton wants. Even if you did its often hard to fit since there is so much you could say and not enough room. His teaching style is so inconsistent that not even the TA’s know what the right answers are on the exams and he only gives one day to correct tests. This is so dumb considering your test is bound to have grading errors because the TA’s have no clue what Burton wants. I somehow did well but I could very easily see how someone could know as much as me and still get a poor grade due to the ludicrous grading of the tests. There aren’t any practice questions for the math which makes no sense. Even if anyone could answer your questions, its tough to get answers since Burton wont answer emails and the TA’s don’t have office hours. He also has this weird obsession with Michael Milken which really isn’t that important to the material in the class but he chooses to focus on him a lot.

Overall, one of the worst professors I have ever had and it shows in absolutely abysmal lecture attendance. This class and professor are an embarrassment to UVA and its mind-boggling that UVA still offers it. The only pros to this class are that it has 0 work, you dont need to attend it and its a finance class in the ECON dept.

There is nothing wrong w the material but Burton is an awful lecturer. I can't hear a lot of things he says and sometimes he is just rambling. ill be sitting in his class for 20 min and sleeping. The tests requires u to remember lots of definitions and the TAs are harsh graders.

I'll say similar things to my review of Burton's Behavioral Finance class (I took both, stupidly):
I understand this is something of an unpopular opinion but I absolutely could not stand Ed Burton. His lectures are pointless - he goes off on useless tangents just so he can brag about himself at least three times per class. Learning course material is confined almost exclusively to doing the readings on your own. HOWEVER, he will specifically put questions on the exams that are only answerable if you attended lecture. It's clear his ego is the size of the lecture hall he teaches in, and he fetishizes the fact that he's the professor and you're his student. You're going to hear, "I"m on the board of SL Greene" 999999 times in the semester. I just hated listening to him every Tues/Thurs. The class is very little work outside of keeping up with the readings and the curve is generous, it's just such a chore to attend.

Overall, the course itself is one that I would recommend to those that have a genuine interest in learning more about financial markets or finance in general; the exams do not assess super specific aspects of the topics covered, with a few exceptions. Attendance at lectures is pretty abysmal – a lot of people skip lecture because Prof. Burton sometimes spends a lot of time talking about recent economic news that is interesting but not vital to learn if a good grade is all you are after. Other than those tangents, lectures are typically just a lot of paraphrasing from his textbook, so do with that information what you will. I find going to lecture made my life a lot easier come exam time. On that note, reading the textbook is VITAL to success in the course; I find that reading the assigned chapters as soon as they are posted helps a lot to fully grasp what is being talked about in lecture. Burton is really good at emphasizing what he likes to assess on exams during lectures, so that is a big incentive to show up even though it's early in the morning (9:30am). The lecture slides online are kind of hit or miss in my opinion; some contain super useful examples that show up again on exams, but others are not super helpful as far as studying goes. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that you MUST READ THE TEXTBOOK. Also, as you read, be sure to TAKE NOTES on the book as well, and then compare them to what you got out of each lecture to be sure you are covering all of the important topics. Basic rule of thumb is the more time Burton spends on a topic, the more specifically and heavily it will be assessed. Burton also loves to get to know students and typically treats students to lunch and dinner each week, so take advantage of that too. TLDR: Burton is a fair professor, and if you read the textbook and take some notes on it, you can expect at least a B. #tCFfall2021