[MCN] Bravo! Teaching of economics meets the real world

[Lance Olsen]

he Economist September 22 2017

The teaching of economics gets an overdue overhaul

Students are forced to grapple with the real world from the very beginning of their courses

This article appeared in the Finance and economics section of the print edition under the headline "Think again”
https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729443-students-are-forced-grapple-real-world-very-beginning-their <https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729443-students-are-forced-grapple-real-world-very-beginning-their>

Excerpts

ECONOMISTS can be a haughty bunch. But a decade of trauma has had a chastening effect. 

They are rethinking old ideas, asking new questions and occasionally welcoming heretics back into the fold. Change, however, has been slow to reach the university economics curriculum. Many institutions still pump students through introductory courses untainted by recent economic history or the market shortcomings it illuminates. 

A few plucky reformers are working to correct that: a grand and overdue idea. Overhauling the way economics is taught ought to produce students more able to understand the modern world. Even better, it should improve economics itself.

"Introductory economics, at its best, enables people to see the unstated assumptions and hidden costs behind the rosy promises of politicians and businessmen.
"Yet the standard curriculum is hardly calibrated to impart these lessons."

"The CORE project (for Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics) seeks to change all this. It sprang from student protests in Chile in 2011 over the perceived shortcomings of their lessons. A Chilean professor, Oscar Landerretche, worked with other economists to design a new curriculum... a text that is free, online and offers interactive charts and videos of star economists."

“ 'The Economy', as the book is economically titled, covers the usual subjects, but in a very different way.” 

https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729443-students-are-forced-grapple-real-world-very-beginning-their <https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729443-students-are-forced-grapple-real-world-very-beginning-their>

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“It is no coincidence that the deepest and most protracted recessions in recent decades have taken hold in countries that experienced booms …” 

The Economist, July, 2001 

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