Teaching Introductory Economics

Within the profession, it is also being widely discussed whether principles classes bear sufficient resemblance to how economics is done at the frontier and by ‘real-world’ practitioners. In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Economic Literature, Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin, who led the development of the CORE curriculum, argue that it is time for a change in what students learn in Economics 101.

In an essay that is also due to appear in the JEL, Greg Mankiw, author of one of the dominant intro textbooks, reflects on how courses should evolve. And there has been media attention for radical plans to change how economics is taught at Harvard, where until recently Mankiw was in charge of the introductory course and, before him, the recently deceased Martin Feldstein.

We invited our US panel to express their views on this topic. We wanted to avoid focusing on specific textbooks but at the same time encourage the experts to look at actual introductory courses at their universities. So we asked them whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statements, and, if so, how strongly and with what degree of confidence:

(a) The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university accurately reflects the way that economists think about a range of economics problems.

(b) The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university addresses the most pressing economic issues in the US.

How economists think

Of our 43 experts, 35 participated in this survey. On the first statement, 9% said that they had no opinion and 2% were uncertain. Along with the experts who did not participate in the survey, these responses may reflect the fact that many of them are not involved with the teaching of introductory economics at their universities. It may also indicate a reluctance to appear to be critical about what is being taught by departmental colleagues.

Of those that did express an opinion and weighted by each expert’s confidence in their response, 21% strongly agreed, 67% agreed and 11% disagreed. A handful contributed short comments that they are able to include when they participate in the survey.

Among those who agreed with the statement, Anil Kashyap commented: ‘Admittedly just skimmed the syllabus of the entry level class, but these things change slowly and supply and demand goes a long, long way.’ Christopher Udry at Northwestern said: ‘Re: the Intro Micro class I taught at Yale largely following Steve Berry’s notes. We tried with limited time to get at the core ideas.’

Daron Acemoglu at MIT disagreed, noting: ‘Principles courses at most universities are out of touch with the emphasis on empirical work and incentives/market imperfections.’

The most pressing issues

On the second statement, again 9% said that they had no opinion. Of those that did express an opinion and weighted by each expert’s confidence in their response, 60% agreed, 25% disagreed and 16% were uncertain (and none said that they either agreed or disagreed strongly).

Among those who agreed with the statement, Joe Altonji explained that at Yale, ‘The first course is microeconomics. A number of critical issues are covered in the second course – macroeconomics.’ Aaron Edlin noted that at Berkeley, ‘Environmental externalities, lackluster growth and even decreases in income for the bottom 75 percent, and inequalities are addressed.’ And Pete Klenow at Stanford pointed to John Taylor’s blog post written at the start of the current academic year, outlining his approach to teaching first-year students in the aftermath of the crisis.

Of those who disagreed, Anil Kashyap suggested a reason why pressing issues might not be addressed right away: ‘You need to walk before you can run, jumping to the most interesting questions is not really feasible; so this is not an indictment.’ Christopher Udry made a similar remark: ‘No, we were trying to lay the foundation for that. But we didn’t have time to do any justice to the issues.’

Of those who replied that they were uncertain, Larry Samuelson at Yale stated: ‘I believe that every introductory economics class has room for improvement in this respect.’ Oliver Hart at Harvard concluded: ‘There are new course head(s) and I imagine this will lead to modifications. The world keeps changing and so should some of the topics.’

All comments made by the experts are in the full survey results.

Romesh Vaitilingam
@econromesh
June 2019