QuantEcon WASM Lectures

A browser-based version of A First Course in Quantitative Economics with Python powered by Pyodide and JupyterLite.

Live site: https://quantecon.github.io/lecture-wasm/

This repository contains a WASM-compatible subset of the QuantEcon lecture series. Using the Pyodide kernel, these lectures run entirely in the browser without requiring any local Python installation.

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20.x or higher

Build and serve locally

# Install dependencies
npm install -g mystmd@1.9.1 thebe-core thebe thebe-lite

# Build
cd lectures
myst build --html

# Serve locally (http://localhost:3000)
myst start

Updating lectures

Do not edit lectures directly in this repository.

Lectures are synced from the wasm branch of lecture-python-intro. To update:

1. Make changes in the wasm branch of lecture-python-intro
2. Run the sync script:

   python update_lectures.py

The sync script downloads the latest content, converts !pip to %pip, removes --upgrade flags, and fixes MyST directive syntax for WASM compatibility.

CI/CD

• Push to main — Builds and deploys to GitHub Pages
• Pull requests — Builds and deploys a preview to Netlify

WASM-unsupported lectures

The following lectures are excluded due to Pyodide/WASM package limitations:

• business_cycle
• inequality
• prob_dist
• heavy_tails
• commod_price
• lp_intro
• short_path
• input_output

Technology

• MyST Markdown — Content format and build system
• Pyodide — Python runtime in WebAssembly
• JupyterLite — Browser-based Jupyter
• Thebe — Executable code cells
• QuantEcon Theme — MyST site theme

Authors

• Thomas J. Sargent — New York University; Hoover Institution
• John Stachurski — Research School of Economics, ANU

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0)