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since the crisis - have changes been made in curriculums?


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I was reading this article:

 

Embracing Wynne Godley, an Economist Who Modeled the Crisis

 

and it made me wonder whether there has been a trickle down of changes in what students are supposed to learn for high school economics courses?

 

Does anyone know?

 

I've always wondered what business schools have done in the past 5 years as well...do they change their programs? Are people who graduated just before the crisis considered to have a worthless diploma since things went so badly?

 

The only answer I really need is for high school as we're doing economics now...:-)

 

Any help is greatly appreciated,

Joan

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I really like the blog economistsview.typepad.com by Mark Thoma for keeping up with current economics, including what lessons economists are and are not learning from the financial crisis.

The author is liberal, but moderate (i.e. if you are doing any of the Austrian curricula popular with homeschoolers you will be getting the other side of the story here), but he very much covers the full spectrum of economics (for example, the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman's major book was covered extensively) and his commenters span the political spectrum as well.

 

 

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I am an economist who teaches Money, Banking, and Financial Markets courses at the university level.  The economics curriculum has not changed that much in the past five years.  The examples have changed.  

 

There were many academic economists who were warning of problems before the crisis; if you read Robert Schiller's work about the housing market that he wrote before the crisis, it is easy to forget that he wrote it BEFORE the crisis because his predictions are so on target for what happened.  

One of the main problems is that the academics and the practitioners in the fields of economics and finance do not interact as much as they should.  No one wanted to hear the warnings of many mainstream economists before the crisis.  This isn't something unique to economics.  When people are enjoying selling their house for twice what they paid for it, they don't want to hear about the lurking financial problems.  

 

It isn't that the economic models were wrong or didn't work.  Many people got overly confident that they could manage the risk in the market with sophisticated financial expertise.  But, the risk never goes away.  Financial crises are nothing new.  Yes, five years ago we had the worst we have had since the Great Depression, but we have had a lot fewer financial crises over the past 80 years than we had over the 80 years before that.

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I don't know anything about the American content of the subject economics, but as you also live in Europe...

 

Economics is a middle school course in Belgium, a lot seems the same as when I studied it.

There is a stronger focus on avoiding debts now (I learned making debts are necessary sometimes),

and with strong warnings against buying on credit (cell phones etc.)

Non-stem tracks have also Financial Algebra in grade 11/12 (to be able to calculate the required mortgage of a house, and if you can afford that with your wages) beside other topics like statistics etc.

 

I own a translation of a book of www.crown.org (christian) when we pass the 8th grade economics exam, I want to study that with dd.

 

A few years ago, just after the begin of the crisis, there was a documentary on television here, why Islamic banks where not affected by the crisis.

It seemed they have a different model of financing/banking then was common in the Western World.

I don't know if it is still the same now, but for Highschool it could be worthwhile to research that...

 

Not sure this helps, but hopefully some startingpoints :)

Hi loesje!

 

Interesting that it's studied in middle school.

 

I'm wondering if you can read what is covered in the Swiss matu for economics in German or French (I forget if your German is better than your French?) and compare it to what is covered in Belgium?

 

In the French version it's on pages (93 and 127)

http://www.sbfi.admin.ch/themen/01366/01379/01626/index.html?lang=fr&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ae2IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCDeoN6f2ym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--

 

In German, here (pg 93 and 131)

http://www.sbfi.admin.ch/themen/01366/01379/01626/index.html?lang=de&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1acy4Zn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCDfXt7gWym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--

 

 

Good research idea!

 

Thanks!

Joan

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I am an economist who teaches Money, Banking, and Financial Markets courses at the university level.  The economics curriculum has not changed that much in the past five years.  The examples have changed.  

 

There were many academic economists who were warning of problems before the crisis; if you read Robert Schiller's work about the housing market that he wrote before the crisis, it is easy to forget that he wrote it BEFORE the crisis because his predictions are so on target for what happened.  

One of the main problems is that the academics and the practitioners in the fields of economics and finance do not interact as much as they should.  No one wanted to hear the warnings of many mainstream economists before the crisis.  This isn't something unique to economics.  When people are enjoying selling their house for twice what they paid for it, they don't want to hear about the lurking financial problems.  

 

It isn't that the economic models were wrong or didn't work.  Many people got overly confident that they could manage the risk in the market with sophisticated financial expertise.  But, the risk never goes away.  Financial crises are nothing new.  Yes, five years ago we had the worst we have had since the Great Depression, but we have had a lot fewer financial crises over the past 80 years than we had over the 80 years before that.

 

Ok, here I'm curious because I thought the article said that Godley had a different model than traditional ones....

 

Interesting about Schiller - we'll have to looking into his predictions.

 

I sure agree about people not wanting to hear warnings! It's so hard to take precautions when things are going along....

 

Thanks for your answer,

Joan

 

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I was curious about whether business schools even require courses in economics. I've looked at a couple, and thus far it appears that the answer is no. As an example:

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academic-experience/curriculum/Pages/default.aspx

 

The first year in an MBA program there are no economics classes. The second year they have electives and there are some classes with economics in the title but at most 3 - 5 out of over 70 electives. Even those classes are not what I would categorize as a pure economics class: 

Institutions, Macroeconomics, and the Global Economy

Managing Global Health: Applying Behavioral Economics to Create Impact and

Contemporary South Asia: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Social & Economic Problems (University-wide Course)

 

 

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A student who receives an undergraduate business degree at a AACSB accreditated school (the primary accrediting group for business schools in the US) would have a course in macroeconomics and a course in microeconomics.  Once you get to MBA programs, the requirements will vary widely.  Many will require a "managerial economics" course, which is primarily applied microeconomics.  Many MBA programs will not list economics as a requirement for the MBA, but having macroeconomics and microeconomics is a requirement for admittance into the program.  

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My son's public high school requires that all students take a semester-long course that touches upon some of the basic prinicples of economics. They did discuss the recent financial crises in the US and elsewhere but not in depth.

 

I believe his school goes into more detail in the full-year economics courses but I can't find a detailed syllabus listing details. I would think they'd cover the recent crises at some point. Teachers will usually put together multiple resources, such as articles, that they knit in with the primary text. The following are the main texts that are used:

 

Non-AP Economics uses (isbn number): 9780133186543

 

AP Economics uses 9780073375694

 

During the summer, students in the 2013 AP course were required to read Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science and answer the following questions. Other books they've read in past summers:

 

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Friedman and Friedman

The Fatal Equilibrium, Jevons

Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner

 

Other grade school resources: the Federal Reserve publishes a comic book series that explains fundamental economic ideas. They aren't too bad for a beginner (except for the cheesy illustrations). Here is a link to what they offer for grades 9-12:

 

http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/resources/search/?rGrade=9-12

 

A short book that discusses financial reform is The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System. It was written by 15 economists who have been meeting and discussing economic and financial problems since 2008 (I think).

 

Chicago Booth Magazine (Booth is U of Chicago's business school) has articles about recessions and reform that are usually pretty easy to read. A high schooler could probably understand some of them. Here's one that might be interesting and that lists a few more books at the bottom of the article.

 

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/summer-2013/occupy-wall-street?cat=markets&src=Magazine

 

I believe U of C requires incoming students to take at least one economics class. My husband was in their PhD program and he took quite a few but most were of his choosing. That was a loooong time ago, though! His PhD is in statistics.

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As for high school, it takes a textbook quite a while to pass through the hoops and be accepted so I seriously doubt it. Ditto for university texts; at every level, I think it would depend upon the individual teacher/professor to add things. An exception might be if a state has added it to its guidelines.

 

Also, it seems to me (I could be wrong) that most Americans, including teachers and profs, are still caught up in economics as a kind of ideology that they are interested in defending at the expense of learning anything.

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Thanks for starting this thread.  My husband was very interested in reading it (and I got to hear A LOT about it!).

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Could you share any of his comments? I'm curious...

 

I see now from other posts that we have to invent our own 'additional chapter' about this...

 

Joan

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I was curious about whether business schools even require courses in economics. I've looked at a couple, and thus far it appears that the answer is no. As an example:

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academic-experience/curriculum/Pages/default.aspx

 

The first year in an MBA program there are no economics classes. The second year they have electives and there are some classes with economics in the title but at most 3 - 5 out of over 70 electives. Even those classes are not what I would categorize as a pure economics class: 

Institutions, Macroeconomics, and the Global Economy

Managing Global Health: Applying Behavioral Economics to Create Impact and

Contemporary South Asia: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Social & Economic Problems (University-wide Course)

 

 

A student who receives an undergraduate business degree at a AACSB accreditated school (the primary accrediting group for business schools in the US) would have a course in macroeconomics and a course in microeconomics.  Once you get to MBA programs, the requirements will vary widely.  Many will require a "managerial economics" course, which is primarily applied microeconomics.  Many MBA programs will not list economics as a requirement for the MBA, but having macroeconomics and microeconomics is a requirement for admittance into the program.  

 

I feel like the blind leading the blind in this subject (and many others) - thankfully I can ask questions here!

 

I guess I was operating on the idea that economics ideas should affect how we run businesses, in every day life...not just for the 'economists' who are analyzing the situation...

 

Joan

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My son's public high school requires that all students take a semester-long course that touches upon some of the basic prinicples of economics. They did discuss the recent financial crises in the US and elsewhere but not in depth.

 

I believe his school goes into more detail in the full-year economics courses but I can't find a detailed syllabus listing details. I would think they'd cover the recent crises at some point. Teachers will usually put together multiple resources, such as articles, that they knit in with the primary text. The following are the main texts that are used:

 

Non-AP Economics uses (isbn number): 9780133186543

 

AP Economics uses 9780073375694

 

During the summer, students in the 2013 AP course were required to read Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science and answer the following questions. Other books they've read in past summers:

 

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Friedman and Friedman

The Fatal Equilibrium, Jevons

Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner

 

Other grade school resources: the Federal Reserve publishes a comic book series that explains fundamental economic ideas. They aren't too bad for a beginner (except for the cheesy illustrations). Here is a link to what they offer for grades 9-12:

 

http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/resources/search/?rGrade=9-12

 

A short book that discusses financial reform is The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System. It was written by 15 economists who have been meeting and discussing economic and financial problems since 2008 (I think).

 

Chicago Booth Magazine (Booth is U of Chicago's business school) has articles about recessions and reform that are usually pretty easy to read. A high schooler could probably understand some of them. Here's one that might be interesting and that lists a few more books at the bottom of the article.

 

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/summer-2013/occupy-wall-street?cat=markets&src=Magazine

 

I believe U of C requires incoming students to take at least one economics class. My husband was in their PhD program and he took quite a few but most were of his choosing. That was a loooong time ago, though! His PhD is in statistics.

 

Thank you so much for these ideas...that I use to help me make this additional chapter!

 

Also, it seems to me (I could be wrong) that most Americans, including teachers and profs, are still caught up in economics as a kind of ideology that they are interested in defending at the expense of learning anything.

 

Very sad to think this could be true...

 

Joan

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I feel like the blind leading the blind in this subject (and many others) - thankfully I can ask questions here!

 

I guess I was operating on the idea that economics ideas should affect how we run businesses, in every day life...not just for the 'economists' who are analyzing the situation...

 

Joan

 

I agree with you, but I knew that business school folks would get very little in the way of economics. Even the two courses jdahlquist mentions wouldn't be much in the way of economics knowledge. Sad but true. 

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I really like the blog economistsview.typepad.com by Mark Thoma for keeping up with current economics, including what lessons economists are and are not learning from the financial crisis.

The author is liberal, but moderate (i.e. if you are doing any of the Austrian curricula popular with homeschoolers you will be getting the other side of the story here), but he very much covers the full spectrum of economics (for example, the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman's major book was covered extensively) and his commenters span the political spectrum as well.

 

I've looked at the blog and have been thinking about it...I can't say that we follow popular economic curricula, though I do like mine to read contrary philosophies/ideology so they can see the broad spectrum of ideas...

 

Since we don't do that much economics, it's a bit hard for me to read the blog as there seem to be lots of references that I'm not really sure of the meaning...We do come across Krugman, etc in the newspaper...but I thought he was liberal - while it seems the blog author disagrees with him...

 

Do you have any link that is less cryptic and perhaps more expansive? (ie the articles are short and seem to be built on previous discussions, so I'm looking for info that has more background built in - perhaps that won't apply to blogs?)...

 

Joan

 

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Since we don't do that much economics, it's a bit hard for me to read the blog as there seem to be lots of references that I'm not really sure of the meaning...We do come across Krugman, etc in the newspaper...but I thought he was liberal - while it seems the blog author disagrees with him...

 

 

Thoma does not disagree with Krugman on everything -- Thoma is a moderate liberal, while Krugman is very solidly liberal. Also, because Thoma is in Oregon, he can observe the East Coast power jockeying with a little more distance and a different perspective.

 

As far as it being cryptic, I enjoy having the quick few paragraph summary of articles, then being able to click on the link for more details if I want to. You can look up names and theories on Wikipedia to fill in your background a bit, too.

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Thoma does not disagree with Krugman on everything -- Thoma is a moderate liberal, while Krugman is very solidly liberal. Also, because Thoma is in Oregon, he can observe the East Coast power jockeying with a little more distance and a different perspective.

 

As far as it being cryptic, I enjoy having the quick few paragraph summary of articles, then being able to click on the link for more details if I want to. You can look up names and theories on Wikipedia to fill in your background a bit, too.

Ok, thanks for perspective on Thoma...

 

I agree about summary articles for areas with which I'm very familiar...otherwise I'm just lost. But I can understand where you are coming from. :-)

 

 

The Becker-Posner blog is interesting to read. Both Gary Becker and Richard Posner are economists.

 

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com

 

I like the style of this one...thanks! Is it more to the right? (which is ok, just to know ahead as I want to try to get both sides...)

 

Joan

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All I know is that anyone still promoting Keynesian economics after both its failure to resolve the problem in the 30's and now since 2009 is much more interested in ideology than truth. 

 

There are some good books out there about the housing crisis - how it came to be and how it collapsed our economy.  I know I read one but don't remember the title now so I will have to try to research that. 

 

I think some of the more interesting work in economics nowadays is the behavioral economics--- actually taking human psychology into account for how we make our choices because in truth, economics is the science of choices.  I was trained in the rational choice model but that does need to be somewhat adjusted since people in certain situations are known not to act rationally because of human bias-  like people are more likely to make an irrational decision to spend more money not to lose money even though it isn't economical. 

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All I know is that anyone still promoting Keynesian economics after both its failure to resolve the problem in the 30's and now since 2009 is much more interested in ideology than truth. 

 

There are some good books out there about the housing crisis - how it came to be and how it collapsed our economy.  I know I read one but don't remember the title now so I will have to try to research that. 

 

I think some of the more interesting work in economics nowadays is the behavioral economics--- actually taking human psychology into account for how we make our choices because in truth, economics is the science of choices.  I was trained in the rational choice model but that does need to be somewhat adjusted since people in certain situations are known not to act rationally because of human bias-  like people are more likely to make an irrational decision to spend more money not to lose money even though it isn't economical. 

Keynes said that a major contributor to business cycles (and the depression) was "animal spirits."  A term that Akerloff and Shiller now use to describe how human behavior impacts the economy.  These behavioral economists are picking up on some of the ideas of Keynes.

 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/books/review/Uchitelle-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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All I know is that anyone still promoting Keynesian economics after both its failure to resolve the problem in the 30's and now since 2009 is much more interested in ideology than truth. 

 

There are some good books out there about the housing crisis - how it came to be and how it collapsed our economy.  I know I read one but don't remember the title now so I will have to try to research that. 

 

I think some of the more interesting work in economics nowadays is the behavioral economics--- actually taking human psychology into account for how we make our choices because in truth, economics is the science of choices.  I was trained in the rational choice model but that does need to be somewhat adjusted since people in certain situations are known not to act rationally because of human bias-  like people are more likely to make an irrational decision to spend more money not to lose money even though it isn't economical. 

 

Please let me know which book you read...

 

So true about human bias! very interesting about the choices aspect of economics.

 

And I was just watching this video about the future - not that I want to promote his ideas, just putting it in because I was fairly alarmed to see the investment that is being made into 'virtual reality products'...wondering how it will affect the economics of families. It is so beyond me how people can put money into a virtual self....

 

(HD) Dr. Michio Kaku: Visions of the Future (S01E01) The Intelligence Revolution

 

 

 

Keynes said that a major contributor to business cycles (and the depression) was "animal spirits."  A term that Akerloff and Shiller now use to describe how human behavior impacts the economy.  These behavioral economists are picking up on some of the ideas of Keynes.

 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/books/review/Uchitelle-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Thanks for posting that!

 

Joan

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http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-11

 

This is a link to a Yale open course on the financial markets by Robert Shiller (one of the developers of the Case-Shiller housing index).  He has some good sessions on risk in the financial markets in general, the housing market collapse, and behavioral finance

 

Thank you!

 

Joan

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