After taking Professor Mazzocco’s nightmare of an Econ 11 class last quarter, I found this class similar but better. In my opinion, Silveira was a much better professor than Mazzocco and very easily the best economics professor I’ve had at UCLA. That’s not saying much, though.

The content of the class was—for a lack of better words—all over the place. I don’t attribute this to the professor but the nature of the class itself. We found ourselves switching gears constantly: we started off with monopoly and oligopoly; abruptly shifted to a diverse spread of game theory topics; and ended by spending the last week on uncertainty and risk topics that had nothing to do with the prior topics we had learned. Although the professor constantly attempted to demonstrate common trends between the topics, we only ever saw them in practice problems or exam problems.

The problem sets were much more challenging than Mazzocco’s and served as adequate preparation for the exams. The few practice exams he put out a week or less before each exam, however, were more helpful. Although there was a lack of practice exams given the fact that Bernardo has only taught this class for two quarters, I found myself prepared for most of the content on the exams. Becoming intimately familiar with the way in which he formats each question on the problem sets and practice exams is essential, especially those that slightly deviate from the examples in lecture.

The exams were some of the hardest I’ve had in UCLA economics, although—as I said before—that isn’t saying much. There were some problem types that we simply never encountered in the lectures or any of the practice materials that made it on the exams; at the end of the day, they just require some creative intuition because there is no good way to prepare for them. Just follow the strategy I give above, and you will do fine.

Being that its his first year at UCLA, it might be because he's still in his honeymoon phase. Nevertheless, it was truly a pleasure being a student in his class. He was passionate about the topic at hand and was always able to convey topics in a clear and succinct fashion. There is some math in the class but as long as you understand the concepts, the math becomes intuitive. Also demonstrates a lot of real life examples to help you bridge the gap between abstract concepts and practical applications. Stays ~5mins after class to answer questions. Also highly recommend his honors seminar ECON 189. We covered racial discrimination in ban-the-box, bail policy etc.

This professor is the best economics professor that I've had in my two years at UCLA. He previously taught at UPenn and WashU in St. Louis. His lectures are clear, concise, and very engaging. He gives a lot of real life examples which keeps me interested in his lectures. He puts out practice midterms and finals that are nearly identical to the real ones. All exams are multiple choice. With two midterms and a final, he chooses the grading scheme that gives you the highest grade. The only negative thing I have to say is that the homework could be very difficulty and take a few hours to complete and do well. It was graded, but didn't really help me on the exams. Overall, loved this class and professor!!

This class is notorious for being difficult, and it was, but Prof Silveria did a good job at teaching it. Our pre-recorded lectures were never too long or unclear. The only time there might have been uncertainty was during the q and a when someone asked a question he didn't know the answer to. While his lectures were really clear, the problem sets tended to throw curve balls and was quite hard. It is a bit hard to prepare for his exams because he has only taught the class once or twice before this quarter so there weren't too many practice exams to use. Overall, for being a new professor, I enjoyed him!

professor silveira is a super nice person and a great lecturer. his slides are very organized and makes class recordings available in a timely manner. i wish I went to more office hours because he does his best to explain tougher concepts and is willing to explain things over and over again.
there were the protests on campus happening during this quarter and when students felt unsafe to go to the second midterm, he changed the grading scheme to make it essentially optional and when the scores came back a lot lower than the first midterm he attributed it to having to transition to asynchronous learning for a couple of weeks and gave everyone 2 points back (a 10% increase). he and the econ dept also changed the final to be online (ppl could still go in person if they wanted) to accommodate to some alarming events happening on campus.
other than that, the workload of this class wasn't too bad. we had weekly problem sets which was good practice for the final. it can take a while to complete those esp the trickier problems so it's good to work w other people or be active on the class groupme. the tests were really tough; midterms weren't too bad but there were some questions that weren't exactly shown in class and required creative reasoning. the final though was kinda crazy. he said he didn't change the questions when switching to the online format but the questions were so much harder than what I think most of us were expecting. all of the tests were also on a time crunch and multiple choice so that for sure made them so much harder. luckily the class was curved relatively generously. all in all would take prof silveira again if he decides to teach other classes.

I really enjoyed the content of this class and found the math to be satisfying once understood. Silveira is a very understanding and accommodating professor, especially with all of the protests going on this quarter. He records his lectures and upload the notes so it is not required to go to class, but Silveira can be quite funny and makes it sometimes enjoyable to attend lecture. There are practice sets with usually 9 questions worth 10% of your grade based on accuracy so it is helpful to have some friends in the class to collaborate with. There are 2 midterms and a final and you are able to drop one of the midterms (in our case because of the protests we could drop both if necessary). He provides practice exams and exams from the previous years to study with but I usually found the actual exams to be harder than the ones he provided, but it is different every year. Time was an issue for me as well as many of my classmates during the tests so it would be a good idea to practice timing yourself while doing the practice exams. The midterms are 1 hour 15 mins with roughly 20 questions and the final is 2 hours with about 27 questions. He does multiple choice questions with short questions in the beginning and long questions that build off of each other at the end. He goes a little quick through the slides so I typed my notes but lots of people used ipads/notebooks because there is a lot of math involved. Make sure to focus in the beginning because everything builds onto each other (except for utility). Overall if you have to take this class I would recommend to take it with Silveira!

Silva was honestly pretty goated. Can drop one midterm if needed. He gives out practice tests that are extremely good prep for the actual exams. Try to take this with friends as the problem sets are graded for accuracy and can sometimes be tricky.

I have to say that Professor Silveira is on of the best professors I've ever had at UCLA. His lectures are very clear, and his notes are very readable. His tests are all multiple choice and is pretty fair. The course material is not easy, but he does a very good job in explaining everything. What's best about him is that he is very reachable outside of class. He is very quick to reply to you emails and is very open and friendly to any question. Would very much recommend taking this class with him!

This man is GOAT. Take him at all cost. Bernado is very, very nice and cares a lot about his students. Go to lectures, review all the slides (which are well-organized in logic and well-taught) and do the practice exams, you'll be more than fine. I hope he teaches more classes and would definitely take his classes again.

If you have the opportunity to take it with Bernardo DO IT!! I found his lectures super helpful. This class is A LOT of game theory and builds a but of 11. This class honestly isnt bad. He gives students the previous tests to study from which are pretty similar to the actual test (I found). He curved our class pretty generously at the end as well. Overall he tries his best to make this class as easy as possible, def take it.