Revisiting the State of Economics Education
The Economics Network and Bank of England hosted this day event on Tuesday 17 March 2015 with support from the Higher Education Academy and Royal Economic Society.
@econromesh @EJ_RES @inetcoreteam @economics_net going to the meeting today on this at the Bank of England. Should be fun.- Large crowd gathered BoE for #revisitecon. Quite a buzz!
- Delegates received paper copies of the Economics Network's new Employer Survey and Trends in UK Economics Education.
New @economics_net data & research launched @bankofengland event!! #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/fEizWo1MuK- The event was opened by Diane Coyle of Enlightenment Economics, who credits her choice of economics as a career to an inspiring teacher at university.
@diane1859 opens conference on econs education at bankofeng inspired as we all are by peter Sinclair #revisitecon
Revisiting the state of economics education - @diane1859 opening #revisitecon conf @bankofengland pic.twitter.com/mVFzazK9FZ
From @diane1859: 3 gaps in econ: econ/real world, research/teaching, employer needs/teaching #revisitecon
Discussing the state of economics education at #revisitecon @bankofengland- Diane Coyle asks is efficiency the best economic lens? Is there a fairness lens? @diane1859 #revisitecon
#revisitecon @diane1859 at @economics_net: we really shouldn't be divorcing economics from politics, or from ethics & philosophy (1/2)- @diane1859 at @economics_net #revisitecon (2/2): but modelling is important and maths will get harder not easier with network/complexity sci
- In the next session, Andy Haldane and Sujit Kapadia of the Bank of England gave an introduction to the new One Bank Research Agenda, including how they were reaching outside standard economic techniques to acquire and interpret data.
- Andy Haldane: #bitcoin raises really interesting Qs about future possible rels between payments/money vs. credit/intermediation #revisitecon
- The Google Trends tool shows the interest in particular search terms over time. Graphing the searches for "job seeker's allowance" results in a surprisingly good fit to official unemployment data.
How well does Google search data match @ONS data? Pretty well it seems! @bankofengland #revisitecon @economics_net pic.twitter.com/d0xUrozZSL
BoE's Head of Research Sujit Kapadia notes balance sheets weren't part of undergrad economics education & should be #revisitecon- #revisitecon - BoE's Sujit Kapadia asks: how can UG economics not teach about #climatechange and income #inequality?
- #revisitecon: BoE's Kapadia says econ edu/regulation needs a bit of sociology, & 'deep understanding of money'... time to read @nigelbdodd?
- The next session was about the CORE materials and included the CORE project lead Wendy Carlin of UCL with two students from her course, as well as Ralf Becker of the University of Manchester and Ha-Joon Chang of the University of Cambridge, chaired by Alvin Birdi of the University of Bristol/ Economics Network.
Ha-Joon Chang and Wendy Carlin introduce and discuss the new CORE curriculum @SussexPEAS @rethinkecon #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/KRktNgXTWX
Core being discussed at event on Teaching Economics organised by @economics_net at the Bank of England #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/0YPVNFVgKg- @EconUCL Wendy Carlin updates on developments of core curriculum @bankofengland #revisitecon conference. @inetcoreteam
Revisiting the State of Economics Education - Wendy Carlin discussing #COREEcon @bankofengland today http://bit.ly/1COR2uC #revisitecon
@EconUCL Wendy Carlin on need to teach new tools from CORE to answer pressing questions in economics. #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/z9rQO7aCqg
@EconUCL student Teresa on new CORE syllabus at #revisitecon. Glad to hear students are as excited as we are. pic.twitter.com/QJbPeWi4Q9
@EconUCL UCL students share experience with new core syllabus @inetcoreteam at #revisitecon @bankofengland pic.twitter.com/DVbOHPNjfp- Ha-Joon Chang criticises CORE for treating great economists as "intellectual fossils" #revisitecon @rethinkecon
- #revisitecon: Ha Joon Chang on @INETeconomics CORE syllabus: good to have history/ real world focus, but too whiggish/neoclassical (1/2)
- #revisitecon: HaJoonChang on @INETeconomics CORE(2/2): no class, no Marx, no primitive accumulation/colonialism in history of capitalism...
- #revisitecon: Ha Joon Chang working on another alternative to @INETeconomics CORE approach to teaching economics with @rethinkecon
- @economics_net #revisitecon: @YuanfenYang from @rethinkecon: CORE is improvement on past econ syllabus but where is pluralism/contestation?
Ready for next session at #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/dCHr0Q7O7r- The "Broadening the curriculum" session was chaired by Eric Pentecost, Chair of CHUDE. It included Maeve Cohen of the University of Manchester's Post-Crash Economics Society, Andrew Mearman of UWE, Bristol, and Alex Teytelboym of the University of Oxford's Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Economics tutorials are just "copying exercises off the blackboard" #revisitecon
'Economics should look to the successes of teaching in other subjects' Maeve Cohen at #revisitecon @economics_net pic.twitter.com/wkLZmbFmAB
Andrew Mearman at #revisitecon @bankofengland suggests a good economist is interdisciplinary. Season 3 now running. pic.twitter.com/rCYjSg07UA
To make real changes, the person in the classroom has to be interested! @andmearman @bankofengland #revisitecon @economics_net workshops!
Interesting discussions on Broadening the Curriculum for economics courses @bankofengland #revisitecon- Andy Ross, former director of the Government Economic Service, chaired the "Engaging students with real-world data" session which included Jonathan Haskel of Imperial College, London; Richard Davies, Economics Editor of The Economist; and Steve Pischke of the London School of Economics.
- "Since I learnt about confirmation bias, I've been seeing it everywhere"- Andy Ross #revisitecon
Importance of engaging students with real world data discussion @bankofengland #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/inNbM0gGzh- The importance of preparing students to address problems has been a clear theme today! @bankofengland #revisitecon
- What is so difficult about teaching using case studies? @TimHarford #revisitecon
J. Haskel: Creative teaching methods important as university revenue increasingly depends on teaching. #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/e1GJQGhoLr- The closing session, chaired by Karen Mumford of the University of York, was titled "Remaining challenges". It included former BoE Deputy Governor Charlie Bean, now based at the London School of Economics; Victoria Chick of UCL, Alan Kirman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and Dave Ramsden, Chief Economic Advisor to HM Treasury.
Charlie Bean: we should broaden the transferable skills and possibly move away from the "problem set" #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/h2RUrWBJdV- Charlie Bean says not Goldman Sachs that runs economic world but MIT with its ad hoc approach to modelling. Both bad. #revisitecon
- We need to teach students to think for themselves- Victoria Chick #revisitecon
Victoria Chick congratulates Economics that there is agreement that the real world is important. #revisitecon pic.twitter.com/fV9m21Vbc0- Vicky Chick, education in economics is not training, since training implies the truth and we dont know the truth #revistecon
- Solow via Charlie Bean: ad hoc in models is a feature not bug, models should be aligned to the problem at hand #revisitecon
- Alan Kirman points out 2 elephants in the economic teaching room: imposition of equilibrium & ignorance of complex systems #revisitecon
- Alan Kirman encourages us to drop the heterodox and orthodox labels we attribute to economists #revisitecon
- Alan Kirman: when we say "rationality" in economics we really mean consistency in choices #revisitecon
Alan Kirman cites Pareto as saying people spend some time making irrational decisions & rest of their time rationalising them #revisitecon- #revisitecon panel member @DaveRamsden1 stressing the importance of passionate & inspiring lecturers
- great to hear that @DaveRamsden1 also credits Peter Sinclair as an inspirational teacher #revisitecon
- Good that Dave Ramsden acknowledges the usefulness of #hetecon in providing ideas to solve problems #revisitecon
- @DaveRamsden1 emphasises the value of inspirational teachers in economics! #revisitecon
- Gender imbalance in #economics noted by @DaveRamsden1 but GES with 30% new recruits women outperforms the discipline #revisitecon
Really pleased to have been involved in yesterday's conference #revisitecon with @diane1859 @haskelecon and many others- “@haskelecon: @DaveRamsden1 @diane1859 thx Dave. Peter Sinclair the star of the show!” Agreed. And @economics_net and @RES_Office
- In her post-event blog post, Diane Coyle writes "I came away feeling very optimistic about the way the debate has moved in three years from a question about whether any change was possible to much more detailed practicalities."
The Enlightened EconomistYesterday I attended a conference organised by the Economics Network and hosted by the Bank of England on the subject of revisiting curriculum reform in economics (the talks from that event were collected, with other contributions, in What's The Use of Economics?)
