Do we need to rethink the teaching of economics?
Despite the enormity of recent events, the principles of economics are largely unchanged. Students still need to learn about gains from trade, supply and demand, the efficiency properties of market outcomes, and so on. These topics will remain the bread-and-butter of introductory courses.
This ascendancy of economic theory has not made the world a better place. Instead, it has made an already troubled society worse: more unequal, more unstable, and less ‘efficient’. Why has economics persisted with a theory which has been comprehensively shown to be unsound?
Do you agree? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Three years ago, we started working on our blog “Reading Mas-Colell” to present critical commentary on “Microeconomic Theory” by Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael Whinston and Jerry Green, a textbook widely used in Ph.D. programs in economics around the world. We are happy to announce that we are now ready to launch our new course ” Advanced Microeconomics For The Critical Mind”. The course aims to introduce interpretative and contextual content to provide exposure to microeconomics as a domain of unsettled questions and live debates, rather than just a field of applied mathematics.
Please join us in the course for more discussion on the role of mathematics and modeling in microeconomics.
