Must-Read: : Issues with Econ 101 at Three Levels: “The debate about what’s right/wrong with introductory economics…
…which has raged intermittently since the financial crisis, is back again…. There are three aspects to what people like or don’t like (often the latter) with Econ 101. The first is pedagogy… lectures vs workshops and projects… marching through models and exploring applications and empirical debates… behind it all, whether the main purpose is to induce students to accept particular economic doctrines or to cultivate critical thinking…. The second is the intellectual content… the gap between standard 101 content and the current trajectory of the discipline is arguably wider than it has been in generations. The third is the state of economics itself…. If Econ 101 takes a narrow, unrealistic line on utility and human decision-making, it could just mean that the limitations of that view are more obvious at that level than they are higher up…. These three dimensions overlap and influence one another…