IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v69y2010i5p1591-1613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economists of Tomorrow: The Case for Assertive Pluralism in Economics Education

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Freeman

Abstract

This article presents the case for “assertive pluralism” in economics education and proposes how to achieve it, illustrating the point with reference to the U.K. Subject Benchmark Statement in Economics (SBSE). It proposes a revision of the benchmark, prioritizing the role of controversy in the teaching of economics, combined with pluralistic principles that uphold and guarantee critical and independent thinking. This reform is a necessary response to what Colander et al. (2009) term the “systemic failure” of economics—the inability of the profession, taken as a whole, to anticipate and understand the financial crash and recession of 2008. Failure on this scale testifies to a more deep‐seated weakness in economics than commonly recognized. It arises from what Turner (Tett 2009) terms the regulatory capture of the economics profession by narrow financial interests. The public, and the economics profession, require specific protection against the pressures that have produced this systemic failure. This requires a rethink of the relation of economics to society, founded on a rejection of the idea that the function of economics is to provide a single, unequivocal solution to every problem of policy. Instead, the article explains, good economics should be constrained to evaluate the full range of relevant solutions to any given policy issue, leaving the decisionmakers accountable for the decisions they make on which solution to adopt.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Freeman, 2010. "The Economists of Tomorrow: The Case for Assertive Pluralism in Economics Education," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(5), pages 1591-1613, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:69:y:2010:i:5:p:1591-1613
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00758.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00758.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00758.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik S. Reinert (ed.), 2004. "Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1570.
    2. Frederic S. Lee, 2007. "The Research Assessment Exercise, the state and the dominance of mainstream economics in British universities," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 31(2), pages 309-325, March.
    3. Andy Denis, 2013. "Pluralism in economics education," Chapters, in: Jesper Jespersen & Mogens Ove Madsen (ed.), Teaching Post Keynesian Economics, chapter 5, pages 88-105, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Ann Pettifor, 2006. "The Coming First World Debt Crisis," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-23675-2, March.
    5. Freeman, Alan, 2007. "Catechism versus pluralism: the heterodox response to the national undergraduate curriculum proposed by the UK Quality Assurance Authority," MPRA Paper 6832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Freeman, Alan, 2008. "Submission from the Association for Heterodox Economics to the International Benchmarking Review on Research Assessment," MPRA Paper 52836, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2008.
    7. Joshua S. Gans & George B. Shepherd, 1994. "How Are the Mighty Fallen: Rejected Classic Articles by Leading Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 165-179, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Economists of Tomorrow
      by Alessandro Cerboni in Knowledge Team on 2014-09-20 13:11:30

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Freema, Alan, 2015. "Going for the Juglar: Keynes, Schumpeter and the Theoretical Crisis of Economics," MPRA Paper 64809, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Jun 2015.
    2. William Prieto-Bustos, 2022. "Los programas académicos de economía: análisis comparativo de Europa y Colombia," Apuntes del Cenes, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, vol. 41(74), pages 41-70, July.
    3. Freeman, Alan, 2015. "Heavens above: what equilibrium means for economics. With an appendix on temporality, equilibrium, endogeneity and exogeneity, in the inductive sciences and in economics," MPRA Paper 65045, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Jun 2015.
    4. repec:zbw:inwedp:552014 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Martin Kniepert, 2014. "Die (Neue) Institutionenökonomik als Ansatz für einen erweiterten, offeneren Zugang zur Volkswirtschaftslehre," Working Papers 552014, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute for Sustainable Economic Development.
    6. Freeman, Alan, 2011. "Association for Heterodox Economics Submission to UK Science and Technology Parliamentary Select Committee on peer review," MPRA Paper 64702, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Mar 2011.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert Garnett, 2012. "Pluralism in Economics," Working Papers 201201, Texas Christian University, Department of Economics.
    2. Andy Denis, 2013. "Pluralism in economics education," Chapters, in: Jesper Jespersen & Mogens Ove Madsen (ed.), Teaching Post Keynesian Economics, chapter 5, pages 88-105, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Freeman, Alan, 2009. "The Economists of Tomorrow," MPRA Paper 15691, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, 2010. "Academic rankings and research governance," IEW - Working Papers 482, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, 2009. "Research Governance in Academia: Are there Alternatives to Academic Rankings?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    6. Freeman, Alan, 2011. "Association for Heterodox Economics Submission to UK Science and Technology Parliamentary Select Committee on peer review," MPRA Paper 64702, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Mar 2011.
    7. Robert Garnett & Andrew Mearman, 2011. "Contending Perspectives, Twenty Years On: What Have Our Students Learned?," Working Papers 201104, Texas Christian University, Department of Economics.
    8. Jakob Kapeller, 2010. "Citation Metrics: Serious Drawbacks, Perverse Incentives, and Strategic Options for Heterodox Economics," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(5), pages 1376-1408, November.
    9. Frederic S. Lee & Xuan Pham & Gyun Gu, 2013. "The UK Research Assessment Exercise and the narrowing of UK economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(4), pages 693-717.
    10. Marion Gaspard & Antoine Missemer, 2019. "An inquiry into the Ramsey-Hotelling connection," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 352-379, March.
    11. Marco LiCalzi, 2022. "Bipartite choices," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 45(2), pages 551-568, December.
    12. Medoff, Marshall H., 2003. "Collaboration and the quality of economics research," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 597-608, October.
    13. Rosser, J. Jr., 1996. "Development, geography, and economic theory : Paul Krugman (The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995) pp. iii + 117, index, $20.00," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 450-454, December.
    14. Andrew Mearman, 2010. "What is this thing called ‘heterodox economics’?," Working Papers 1006, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol.
    15. David B. Audretsch & Christina Guenther & Adam Lederer, 2022. "Publishing in Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 1-5, January.
    16. Rafols, Ismael & Leydesdorff, Loet & O’Hare, Alice & Nightingale, Paul & Stirling, Andy, 2012. "How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1262-1282.
    17. Brogaard, Jonathan & Engelberg, Joseph & Parsons, Christopher A., 2014. "Networks and productivity: Causal evidence from editor rotations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 251-270.
    18. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 1999. "The Golden Age of Nobel Economists," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 43(2), pages 19-35, October.
    19. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2003. "Pluralism in Economics: A Public Good or a Public Bad?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-034/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 18 May 2004.
    20. Jo, Tae-Hee & Todorova, Zdravka, 2015. "Frederic S. Lee’s Contributions to Heterodox Economics," MPRA Paper 62568, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:69:y:2010:i:5:p:1591-1613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.