IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v55y2010i1p84-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using The Simpsons to Improve Economic Instruction Through Policy Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Mark T. Gillis
  • Joshua Hall

Abstract

The analysis of public policy issues in the classroom can be a powerful tool to help students learn because it encourages students to actively apply classroom material. The television show The Simpsons provides several episodes that revolve around policy issues amenable to examination. Using The Simpsons to provide students with material for analysis has two advantages over traditional sources such as newspapers or magazines. First, a long-running and popular television show effectively engages students in a way traditional sources cannot. Second, the context of an animated television show can help students separate positive economic analysis from normative economic analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark T. Gillis & Joshua Hall, 2010. "Using The Simpsons to Improve Economic Instruction Through Policy Analysis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 55(1), pages 84-92, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:55:y:2010:i:1:p:84-92
    DOI: 10.1177/056943451005500109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943451005500109
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943451005500109?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. Robert L. Sexton, 2006. "Using Short Movie and Television Clips in the Economics Principles Class," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 406-417, October.
    2. Don Leet & Scott Houser, 2003. "Economics Goes to Hollywood: Using Classic Films and Documentaries to Create an Undergraduate Economics Course," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 326-332, December.
    3. Peter E. Kennedy, 2000. "Eight Reasons Why Real versus Nominal Interest Rates Is the Most Important Concept in Macroeconomics Principles Courses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 81-84, May.
    4. Daniel B. Klein, 1999. "Introduction: What Do Economists Contribute?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Daniel B. Klein (ed.), What do Economists Contribute?, chapter 1, pages 1-26, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Abdullah Al-Bahrani & David Mahon & G. Dirk Mateer & Patrick Ryan Murphy, 2018. "Pokemon GO: Applications for the Economics Classroom," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 3(2), pages 218-231, December.
    2. Rousu, Matthew C. & Melichar, Mark & Hackenberry, Bailey, 2021. "Using Music to Teach Agricultural, Applied, and Environmental Economics," Applied Economics Teaching Resources (AETR), Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 3(4), November.
    3. Joshua Hall & Josh Matti & Amir B. Ferreira Neto, 2019. "Rent-seeking in the classroom and textbooks: Where are we after 50 years?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 71-82, October.
    4. Carlos J. Asarta & Austin S. Jennings & Paul W. Grimes, 2017. "Economic Education Retrospective," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 62(1), pages 102-117, March.
    5. R. Andrew Luccasen & Michael Hammock & M. Kathleen Thomas, 2011. "Teaching Macroeconomic Principles Using Animated Cartoons," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 56(1), pages 38-47, May.
    6. Christopher Clark & Brooke Conaway & Jessie Folk & Justin Roush, 2021. "Teaching Economics in Three Acts," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 5(3), pages 116-130, March.
    7. John T. Dalton & Andrew J. Logan, 2020. "Using the movie Joy to teach innovation and entrepreneurship," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3-4), pages 287-296, August.
    8. Abdullah Al‐Bahrani & Darshak Patel, 2015. "Using ESPN 30 for 30 to teach economics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 829-842, January.
    9. Joshua C. Hall, 2017. "A "Model" Model: McCloskey and the Craft of Economics," Working Papers 17-09, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    10. Sarah Burke & Patricia Robak & Carolyn Fabian Stumph, 2018. "Beyond Buttered Popcorn: A Project Using Movies to Teach Game Theory in Introductory Economics," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 3(1), pages 153-161, May.
    11. Hall, Joshua C. & Podemska-Mikluch, Marta, 2015. "Teaching the economic way of thinking through Op-eds," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 13-21.
    12. Matthew C. Rousu, 2018. "Using Show Tunes to Teach about Free (and Not-So-Free) Markets," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 33(Winter 20), pages 111-128.
    13. Joshua C. Hall & Kaitlyn R. Harger, 2014. "Teaching Students to "Do" Public Choice in an Undergraduate Public Sector Course," Working Papers 14-16, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    14. Marta Podemska-Mikluch & Darwyyn Deyo & David T. Mitchell, 2016. "Public Choice Lessons from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 31(Spring 20), pages 57-69.
    15. Ambrose Leung & Hiroyo Nakagawa, 2021. "Exploring Collaborative Learning in Economics with Visual Aids," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 6(1), pages 53-69, May.

    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. Abdullah Al-Bahrani & David Mahon & G. Dirk Mateer & Patrick Ryan Murphy, 2018. "Pokemon GO: Applications for the Economics Classroom," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 3(2), pages 218-231, December.
    2. Joab N. Corey & James D. Gwartney & Gail M. Hoyt, 2011. "Economics Teaching Workshops: Past, Present, and Future," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 76, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Diaz Vidal, Daniel & Mungenast, Kyle & Diaz Vidal, Jesus, 2020. "Economics through film: Thinking like an economist," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    4. Dalton, John T. & Logan, Andrew J., 2022. "The Man Who Discovered Capitalism: A documentary on Schumpeter for use in the classroom," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    5. G. Dirk Mateer & Linda S. Ghent & Misty Stone, 2011. "TV for Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 207-207, June.
    6. Joshua C. Hall & Robert A. Lawson & J. Dirk Mateer & Andrew Rice, 2008. "Teaching Private Enterprise Through Tunes: An Abecedarium of Music for Economists," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 23(Spring 20), pages 157-166.
    7. G. Dirk Mateer & Brian O’Roark & Kim Holder, 2016. "The 10 Greatest Films for Teaching Economics," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 61(2), pages 204-216, October.
    8. Christopher Clark & Brooke Conaway & Jessie Folk & Justin Roush, 2021. "Teaching Economics in Three Acts," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 5(3), pages 116-130, March.
    9. Abdullah Al‐Bahrani & Darshak Patel, 2015. "Using ESPN 30 for 30 to teach economics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 829-842, January.
    10. Shane Sanders & Andrew Luccasen & Abhinav Alakshendra, 2023. "Rent control according to Seinfeld," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 82(2), pages 151-161, March.
    11. Daniel Kuester & Dirk Mateer, 2018. "Teaching How Markets Work Using the Economics of The Office Website," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 33(Fall 2018), pages 75-91.
    12. Marie Briguglio & Charity-Joy Acchiardo & Dirk Mateer & Wayne Geerling, 2020. "Behavioral economics in film: Insights for educators," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 4(1), pages 17-28, December.
    13. John T. Dalton & Andrew J. Logan, 2020. "Using the movie Joy to teach innovation and entrepreneurship," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3-4), pages 287-296, August.
    14. Allison Shwachman Kaminaga & Aziz N. Berdiev & Laura Beaudin, 2024. "Using the Fed Challenge to Enrich the Teaching of a Money and Banking Class," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 213-234, April.
    15. Birdi, Alvin & Cook, Steve & Elliott, Caroline & Lait, Ashley & Mehari, Tesfa & Wood, Max, 2023. "A critical review of recent economics pedagogy literature, 2020–2021," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    16. Sean E. Mulholland & Sherri Wall, 2017. "Sidewalk Economics," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 32(Summer 20), pages 93-100.
    17. Ambrose Leung & Hiroyo Nakagawa, 2021. "Exploring Collaborative Learning in Economics with Visual Aids," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 6(1), pages 53-69, May.
    18. Charity-Joy Acchiardo & Deirdre Calhoun & Megan Kirts & G. Dirk Mateer, 2021. "A Pixar Is Worth a Thousand Words," Journal of Economics Teaching, Journal of Economics Teaching, vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, May.
    19. Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., 2009. "Using Video Clips to Teach Creative Destruction," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 25(Fall 2009), pages 151-161.
    20. Kroszner, Randall S., 1999. "Is the Financial System Politically Independent? Perspectives on the Political Economy of Banking and Financial Regulation," Working Papers 151, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    active learning; popular culture;

    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:sae:amerec:v:55:y:2010:i:1:p:84-92. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.