Economics Profession

There is a mix of common-sense opinions, political prejudices, conventional business practice, and pragmatic rules of thumb, supported in an ad hoc, opportunistic way by bits and pieces of economic theory.

On George Akerlof’s “The Market for Lemons”

A major shift is needed in the Econometrics curriculum for both graduate and undergraduate teaching to include modern topics.

Orthodox macroeconomics has become a place where visions die and hopes are banished, for both liberals and conservatives.

This essay critically evaluates the benefits and costs of the dominant methodology in macroeconomics, the DSGE approach. Although the approach has led to great progress in some areas, it has also created biases and blind spots in the profession that hold back our understanding and our ability to govern the macroeconomy. There is great scope for progress in macroeconomics by judiciously pushing the boundaries of some of the methodological restrictions imposed by the DSGE approach.

Marc Lavoie discusses the methodological foundations of heterodox economics, and offers a very different model of money and credit, firms and pricing, consumer theory, effective demand and employment and growth theories.

Tania Singer on the key importance of understanding preferences and behavioral change.

Good incentives are no substitute for good citizens.

The extremely wise Robert Skidelsky has an excellent rant against Anglo-Saxon economics departments

I first came across economics students’ campaigns to revolutionise their education in that bastion of radical thought: the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Among the areas left largely unscathed by the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent never-­‐ending recession, the teaching of economics ranks high.

Hubris might well head the list

This panel covers the teaching of economics at the university level.

In the past three years, students around the world have turned the heat of scrutiny onto our economics departments. Our call is strikingly uniform across our diverse cultures and languages: we want critical debate back in the economics curriculum.