Teaching of Economics
It is really interesting for me to think about this topic in Economics. I mean, I bet most of you think that Economics is just alot about writing essays, writing bull shit or throwing some smoke bomb to dazzle the audience with. For those who have some formal course in Economics at the University level, they will think of Economics as just solving Mathematical problems and equations.
Now, I'm not actually very sure whether I can write a dissertation on this since this topic is actually pretty taboo, or should I say that people prefer to have their own views of things and refuse to condone to any particular way of teaching. After all, diversity is highly treasured, and any educator should decide on his own teaching methodology.
But, I can briefly summarise something I have observed. Firstly, for those doing A levels and pre-A levels, Economics tend to follow a very traditional, classical approach in which cases were argued. There's very little Mathematical formulation involved. But, come university, the math invasion takes place and it becomes the Neo-classical methodology, which is full of maths and models, but a lack of essays and arguments.
This huge disparity is something which I find interesting. I guess people will say for pre-Uni students, they lack the formal Math training required. I guess there's some truth in that, but I'm sure it wouldn't harm if there's just a little bit more exposure to Mathematical models then? Students do know a bit, and it also ensures that when they go to University, they wouldn't make the mistake of doing the wrong subject, since I know a lot of people who chose Economics without realising the Math involved.
But interestingly, the dearth of writing at the University level (ok, maybe this is not true for Cambridge, but the way my friends in the US unis and LSE describe it, it is true for most), worries me. Economics is a social science which is definitely relevant to the world. By just doing Mathematical modelling, students might end up with the wrong idea that there are definite truths in the world when there isn't (even Physics, has a lot of uncertainty at the Quantum level, so Economics is definitely not that definite). And I think it is crucial that people do understand that, as it will be worrying if policy makers think they can tweak the economy just like adjusting the levers on a machine (lol, the irony here is that the Philips machine is in my faculty).
Actually, I think what will be more important is the teaching of economic policy. To be fair, I have not studied Public Economics (planned to do that next year), and neither have my lectureres taught us much on policy work. But, I personally think that there's no real teaching of how to design good policies. Lectures on the costs and benefits of policies are plentiful, and we are taught cost-benefit analysis. But how about the design of policies? It will be great, also if the policies are taught based on the historical context (I mean, we all know the US Fed Reserves did a bad job back then in the late 1920s, but why?), and also if they point out that policy makers are not given the luxury of time to run through models/policy options before making a decision; most of the time, they have to make a choice and venture into the unknown during times of crises. It is actually critical to properly educate people on the design and implementation of economic policies, and to have a structured way of doing that. Honestly, I have no idea whether much have been done on this field, or whether researchers care about it; but I think it is critical. So let's brainstorm what can possibly be done.
1. Analysis of previous policy decisions given the historical context. THIS is critical as a first step. The Fed/ governments' reactions to different crises has to be examined based on the knowledge back then, and contrasted with present knowledge. Economics has progressed significantly over the last 50 years, and it will be a shame to just criticise previous decision-makers based on hindsight, when we have to thank them for providing us with the opportunity to understand crises better.
2. Policy design under mock scenarios. This is the tricky bit in my opinion, and is best done as a class assignment. It will be interesting to see how people will behave when given certain crises, as well as the decisions they make (possible to link this to experimental economics?). But then, revealed preferences are not necessarily the same as stated preferences, and we have to bear this in mind when attempting to do anything along these lines.
I do not know actually, but I guess a lot of research could be done into pedegogy to observe how people learn, and then come up with a good model to teach people about public economics. It is truly tricky, possibly hypothetical, and also the effects of it is highly doubtable too. I guess as long as people are aware that decision-making is not a perfect science, and we would have achieve the aims.
To be honest, decision-making is central to economics and it exists in every thing we study. And I guess, it might be possible to do research on a part of economics which recently captivated my attention - behavioural economics. More on that next time.
Now, I'm not actually very sure whether I can write a dissertation on this since this topic is actually pretty taboo, or should I say that people prefer to have their own views of things and refuse to condone to any particular way of teaching. After all, diversity is highly treasured, and any educator should decide on his own teaching methodology.
But, I can briefly summarise something I have observed. Firstly, for those doing A levels and pre-A levels, Economics tend to follow a very traditional, classical approach in which cases were argued. There's very little Mathematical formulation involved. But, come university, the math invasion takes place and it becomes the Neo-classical methodology, which is full of maths and models, but a lack of essays and arguments.
This huge disparity is something which I find interesting. I guess people will say for pre-Uni students, they lack the formal Math training required. I guess there's some truth in that, but I'm sure it wouldn't harm if there's just a little bit more exposure to Mathematical models then? Students do know a bit, and it also ensures that when they go to University, they wouldn't make the mistake of doing the wrong subject, since I know a lot of people who chose Economics without realising the Math involved.
But interestingly, the dearth of writing at the University level (ok, maybe this is not true for Cambridge, but the way my friends in the US unis and LSE describe it, it is true for most), worries me. Economics is a social science which is definitely relevant to the world. By just doing Mathematical modelling, students might end up with the wrong idea that there are definite truths in the world when there isn't (even Physics, has a lot of uncertainty at the Quantum level, so Economics is definitely not that definite). And I think it is crucial that people do understand that, as it will be worrying if policy makers think they can tweak the economy just like adjusting the levers on a machine (lol, the irony here is that the Philips machine is in my faculty).
Actually, I think what will be more important is the teaching of economic policy. To be fair, I have not studied Public Economics (planned to do that next year), and neither have my lectureres taught us much on policy work. But, I personally think that there's no real teaching of how to design good policies. Lectures on the costs and benefits of policies are plentiful, and we are taught cost-benefit analysis. But how about the design of policies? It will be great, also if the policies are taught based on the historical context (I mean, we all know the US Fed Reserves did a bad job back then in the late 1920s, but why?), and also if they point out that policy makers are not given the luxury of time to run through models/policy options before making a decision; most of the time, they have to make a choice and venture into the unknown during times of crises. It is actually critical to properly educate people on the design and implementation of economic policies, and to have a structured way of doing that. Honestly, I have no idea whether much have been done on this field, or whether researchers care about it; but I think it is critical. So let's brainstorm what can possibly be done.
1. Analysis of previous policy decisions given the historical context. THIS is critical as a first step. The Fed/ governments' reactions to different crises has to be examined based on the knowledge back then, and contrasted with present knowledge. Economics has progressed significantly over the last 50 years, and it will be a shame to just criticise previous decision-makers based on hindsight, when we have to thank them for providing us with the opportunity to understand crises better.
2. Policy design under mock scenarios. This is the tricky bit in my opinion, and is best done as a class assignment. It will be interesting to see how people will behave when given certain crises, as well as the decisions they make (possible to link this to experimental economics?). But then, revealed preferences are not necessarily the same as stated preferences, and we have to bear this in mind when attempting to do anything along these lines.
I do not know actually, but I guess a lot of research could be done into pedegogy to observe how people learn, and then come up with a good model to teach people about public economics. It is truly tricky, possibly hypothetical, and also the effects of it is highly doubtable too. I guess as long as people are aware that decision-making is not a perfect science, and we would have achieve the aims.
To be honest, decision-making is central to economics and it exists in every thing we study. And I guess, it might be possible to do research on a part of economics which recently captivated my attention - behavioural economics. More on that next time.
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