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What Students Learn in Economics 101: Time for a Change

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  • Samuel Bowles
  • Wendy Carlin

Abstract

We make the case for a shift in what students learn in a first economics course, taking as our exemplar Paul Samuelson's paradigm-setting 1948 text. In the shadow of the Great Depression, Samuelson made Keynesian economics an essential component of what every economics student should know. By contrast, leading textbooks today were written in the glow of the Great Moderation and the tamed cyclical fluctuations in the two decades prior to 2007. Here, using topic modeling, we document Samuelson's novelty and the evolution of the content of introductory textbooks since, and we put forward three propositions. First, as was the case in the aftermath of the Great Depression, new problems now challenge the content of our introductory courses; these include mounting inequalities, climate change, concerns about the future of work, and financial instability. Second, the tools required to address these problems, including strategic interaction, limited information, principal-agent models, new behavioral foundations, and dynamic processes including instability and path dependence, are available (indeed widely taught in PhD programs). And third, as we will illustrate by reference to a new open access introductory text, a course integrating these tools into a new benchmark model can be accessible, engaging, coherent and, as a result, successfully taught to first-year students. Deployed to address the new problems, following Samuelson's example, the new benchmark provides the basis for integrating not only micro- and macroeconomics but also the analysis of both market failures and the limits of government interventions.

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  • Samuel Bowles & Wendy Carlin, 2020. "What Students Learn in Economics 101: Time for a Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 176-214, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:58:y:2020:i:1:p:176-214
    DOI: 10.1257/jel.20191585
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    2. Gunessee, Saileshsingh & Lane, Tom, 2023. "Changing perceptions about experimentation in economics: 50 years of evidence from principles textbooks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
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    6. Leigh, Andrew, 2024. "The Shortest History of Economics (published in the US as How Economics Explains the World)," MPRA Paper 122935, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Jane E. Ihrig & Scott A. Wolla, 2020. "Let's Close the Gap: Revising Teaching Materials to Reflect How the Federal Reserve Implements Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-092, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Todd Pugatch & Elizabeth Schroeder, 2024. "A simple nudge increases socioeconomic diversity in undergraduate Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 287-307, January.
    9. Levy, Daniel & Mayer, Tamir & Raviv, Alon, 2022. "Economists in the 2008 financial crisis: Slow to see, fast to act," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Rebecca Cassells & Leonora Risse & Danielle Wood & Duygu Yengin, 2023. "Lifting Diversity and Inclusion in Economics: How the Australian Women in Economics Network Put the Evidence into Action," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 42(1), pages 1-29, March.
    11. Diaf, Sami & Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Rockenbach, Ida, 2020. "Sharks and minnows in a shoal of words: Measuring latent ideological positions of German economic research institutes based on text mining techniques," Working Papers 24, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
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    13. Samuel Bowles, 2023. "Moral economics," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 151-160, June.
    14. Rainer Hillebrand, 2024. "Komlos, John, Foundations of real-world economics: what every economics student needs to know, 3rd edition, 2023, Routledge, New York and London, 420 pp., £ 39.99 (Paperback)," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 289-292, April.
    15. Rommel, Florian & Urban, Janina, 2022. "A Survey of German Economics," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264131, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Saileshsingh Gunessee & Tom Lane, 2020. "Is Economics An Experimental Science? A Textbook Perspective," Discussion Papers 2020-16, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    17. Diaf, Sami & Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Rockenbach, Ida, 2022. "Sharks and minnows in a shoal of words: Measuring latent ideological positions based on text mining techniques," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. Cannon, Edmund & Cipriani, Giam Pietro, 2021. "Gender Differences in Student Evaluations of Teaching: Identification and Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 14387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Urban, Janina & Rommel, Florian, 2020. "German economics: Its current form and content," Working Paper Serie des Instituts für Ökonomie 56, Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung (HfGG), Institut für Ökonomie.
    20. Chukiat Chaiboonsri & Satawat Wannapan, 2021. "Applying Quantum Mechanics for Extreme Value Prediction of VaR and ES in the ASEAN Stock Exchange," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, February.
    21. Tallgauer, Maximilian & Schank, Christoph, 2024. "Challenging the growth-prosperity Nexus: Redefining undergraduate economics education for the Anthropocene," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • D00 - Microeconomics - - General - - - General
    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General

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