Over the past month, I have noticed an increase in the frequency of calls to change how we teach intro courses in Economics. This is probably just a reflection of my Twitter feed and other sites that I visit, but it has led me to reflect more on how I teach.
The objections that I am seeing come in three broad forms:
- Instructors should stop teaching X. For example, we should stop teaching that GDP is a good goal for governments to strive for, or to stop teaching that Pareto optimality implies a positive outcome. With both of these examples, and most others, my natural response is simply that I don’t teach those things.
- Instructors should start teaching Y. For example, we should start teaching behavioural economics (and stop teaching that all people make choices in a self-interested, perfectly rational way to maximize consumption, see objection 1).
- Instructors should use a different textbook – one that reflects the “correct” choices based on objections (1) or (2). Over the past couple of years, the recommendation that I am seeing is to move to the textbook “The Economy” produced by The Core Economy group. This is a free textbook created and endorsed by a group of leading economists.
These objections are all, to some extent, valid. From the start of university (and preferably before), students should be challenged to think about difficult questions in our society, and to start to use economic reasoning to understand the answers to those questions.
Making Choices
That said, there is a limited amount of time in any university course, so instructors must make choices. In my opinion, there are three possible areas of focus in an introductory economics course:
- Teaching students about the economy.
- Teaching students how economic research answers critical questions.
- Teaching students to use simple models to try to answer critical questions.
The Effects of Minimum Wages
As an example, a key economic question that engages many undergraduate students is to try to understand the effects of minimum wages on economic outcomes. On this issue, we can:
- Teach students about historical minimum wage policy, and about recent changes in both minimum wage and employment levels.
- Explain the ongoing debate about the effects of minimum wage policy within the economics profession.
- Use simplified economic models (competitive labour markets, and monopsony labour markets) to understand how minimum wages might interact with the economy.
My approach is to discuss all three, but most assessment is based on the third approach.
Anyway, I’ll write more later – my intent is to develop a companion document to go with my course outline to help students understand why my course is designed the way it is. Along the way, maybe I will begin to understand it myself.