The Atlantic

December 27, 2011

The great irony and tragedy of “intro econ” is that it is at its introductory level that economic theory is both most broadly consumed and most malignantly simplistic. In a recent study, economists at the University of Washington found there to be an “indoctrination effect” for non-majors who take an economics course: on average, they behave more selfishly and hold less regard for others after taking such a course.

Generations of the world’s business people and public policy makers have been nursed on such courses. To gain some insight into why our economies and institutions are crumbling beneath us, then, imagine an engineer equipped with a rudimentary understanding of physics that omits gravity, and a certain above-average disregard for human life not his own. Now imagine him building all the major bridges in the world.

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The Trouble with Principles: Or, How to Not Lose Friends and Alienate People When Learning Economics (#OccupyWallStreet, #OWS)

Perhaps the most interesting bit,

To casually label economics a science is at best aspirational, at worst manipulative, at a minimum misleading. At the introductory level, the issue at stake is less one of methodology than of how deferential the layperson or novice should be to the authority of expert or policy entrepreneur appeal to economic theory. Skepticism is always a virtue. When evaluating claims based on simple economic models, it’s self-defense.

I feel like this should be read alongside What We Learn When We Learn Econ by Christopher Hayes. It basically discusses his experience in an intro to econ course at the University of Chicago. To save you some time, it was not an overwhelmingly positive experience.

Meanwhile at Berkeley, the into to econ course is being taught by Brad DeLong during the spring.

(via thenoobyorker)

9:29am
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