Preparatory Program (Starting Soon)

Workshops

Studying Economics with AI

Rigour, Verification, and the Research-to-Problem Workflow

A 4-hour hands-on workshop for university students in Economics. Covers Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM, Colab, and LaTeX/TikZ.

🗓 Date: May 24, 2026 (Sunday)

⏳ Duration: 4 hours of instruction (10:00 AM – 4:00 PM IST with breaks)

💻 Mode: Online

👨‍🏫 Instructor: Amit Goyal

💰 Fee: ₹4,000/-

Who this is for

This workshop is for university-level economics students — undergraduate or postgraduate — who want to use AI to study harder, not to study less.

You'll get the most out of it if:

You are comfortable with intermediate microeconomics, basic optimisation, and standard probability.
You read papers (or want to) and find the math harder than the intuition.
You write notes and assignments in LaTeX, or want to.

This workshop is not for someone looking for shortcuts on assignments, a survey of the latest AI products, or a conversation about whether AI will replace economists. We will spend four hours treating AI as a study partner: a brilliant but sometimes unreliable one whose output you must verify, whose hints you must work through, and whose limits you must learn.

What you'll do

This is a hands-on workshop. You will need a laptop and free accounts on Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM, Overleaf and Google Colab — all set up before we begin (instructions sent on registration).

Across the four hours, you will:

Generate TikZ diagrams from natural language and iterate them until they match your standard.
Draft equations, Beamer skeletons, and clean LaTeX from rough descriptions.
Run a Cournot duopoly simulation in Google Colab using AI-generated Python — and read it line by line before you trust it.
Build a NotebookLM revision notebook from your own lecture notes and textbook PDFs.
Replicate the core argument of Akerlof's "Market for Lemons" end to end: read the paper, build the toy model, solve the math with full rigour, and produce a numerical illustration.

What you'll take away

A working map of which AI tool to use for which task. Not feature comparisons — task-to-tool mappings.

A library of prompt templates designed for economics students. Over 20 reusable prompts covering learning new concepts, hint-based problem-solving, generating LaTeX and TikZ, debugging code, reading research papers, and brainstorming.

A replicable workflow for translating research papers into college-level problems with full mathematical working. You'll see it done once on Akerlof and leave equipped to do it on Diamond–Dybvig, Spence, or any paper you choose next.

A clear set of dos and don'ts for using AI without losing the mathematical maturity you came to economics to build.

What we'll cover

The workshop will cover:

1. Choosing the right tool. Task-to-tool mapping across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM, and Colab.

2. Learning economics with AI. Three modes — Socratic tutor (asking for hints, not solutions), patient explainer, and error-finder (paste your proof, ask for errors without fixes). Demonstrated on real problems from intermediate and advanced micro.

3. LaTeX, TikZ, and presentations. Equation generation from natural language. TikZ diagrams (game trees, indifference curves, IS-LM). Beamer skeletons in 30 seconds. Debugging compilation errors.

4. Programming with AI. Python in Google Colab, with the read-before-run rule. Live demonstration.

5. NotebookLM for revision and research.

6. Research-to-problem replication (deep dive). Pick a classic paper. Read it with NotebookLM. Build the minimal toy model. Solve it with full rigour using the error-finder mode. Produce a numerical illustration in Colab. Walk away with a workflow you can reuse on any paper.

A short closing module covers the responsible-use frame: dos, don'ts, academic integrity.

Format and materials

Four hours, online, 10:00 AM to 04:00 PM IST, with breaks. Live (not recorded for asynchronous viewing) — but registered students will receive the slide deck, the prompt-template handout, the demo Colab notebook, and a written companion to the Akerlof replication after the workshop.

The workshop runs on Google meet (link sent two days before). You'll need a laptop, a stable internet connection, and accounts ready as listed above.

Frequently asked

Will the workshop be recorded? The workshop is delivered live and is not distributed as a recording afterward. Materials (slides, handouts, demo notebook) are sent to all registered participants.

Do I need prior experience with AI tools? No. We start from the basics of when to use which tool. What you do need is comfort with intermediate-level economics and standard mathematics — the workshop is paced for university-level economics students.

Do I need prior experience with Python, R, or LaTeX? Helpful but not required. The programming module is hands-on enough that complete beginners can follow along; experienced users will find the read-before-run discipline valuable regardless of their level. For LaTeX, beginners are welcome.

What if I can't attend live? Materials are still sent to all registered participants. But the workshop is designed around live demonstrations and you should plan to attend if you can.

Are there scholarships? We consider scholarship requests on a case-by-case basis for students with demonstrated need. Write to us through the email ( amit@econschool.in ) to discuss.

📌 Interested in joining?

From our past workshops (related content from previous editions — not the material for this workshop)

Introduction to Python Videos: YouTube
Introduction to R Videos: YouTube
LaTeX Workshop Slides:

LaTeX Workshop

Probability Problems (for Python Applications) (Slides):

probability-questions-slides.pdf

Probability with R Workshop (Sample Document):

Probability wit R.pdf

Feedback on Past workshops

Probability and Statistics with R

"The workshop provided motivation, freedom and knowledge about use of computer software in study. Thus, paving way to self dependent way of learning and correcting ourselves in finding mean, median, indifference maps, regression coefficients, etc. when we are stuck. Overall a very enjoyable, interactive and knowledge enhancing session :)"
"Better and Long lasting understanding of probability and the most important concepts like CLT and Weak Law of large numbers which we used earlier without realizing its actual working behind it."
"It kept along with everybody's learning pace and hence nobody felt lost even for a short duration. Easily comprehensible and structured way of teaching by Amit Goyal Sir."
"The overall lecture was progressive, began from the very basic to a good level of coding. The hashes used for subtopics made the lecture more meaningful as in the program itself, we could note the required features of R. We were also made to see the graphs of the different features of probability and statistics which were really meaningful and gave us an idea to use those tools to see what's going inside the statistical activities, this was the best part of the workshop. I think this was the part where you can spend more time, it's interesting and really meaningful."
"I was just a beginner. So I learn lots of things from this workshop. This is a very useful workshop for me. Some time to observe the thing in the probability is very difficult, but by using R its very easy to understand the concept. And we can see the things other than concept which are not generally given in the text books."

Economics with MS-Excel

"The very idea that excel could be applied to huge array of economic applications and many interesting things. The content was superb."
"This was a totally new experience. So learning something new is always good. Course content was nice as we were learning to use the concepts we have already studied in excel."
"The program addressed ways of solving economic problems in a very interesting and user friendly manner. MS Excel is freely available and accessible."

Dynamic programming with Octave

"Octave was a new thing for me. Completely new. Even the coding part. So, i enjoyed it. Got to learn something new."
"I really enjoyed the whole program. It was really interesting. Both the instructors are good. Amit goyal sir thank you so much for this workshop. I would like to attend more workshop like this ."