‘What We Learn When We Learn Economics’ by Christopher Hayes, Washington editor for The Nation, is a great article inspired by Mr Hayes sitting in on a six-month introductory macroeconomics course from the University of Chicago: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2897/ and http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/what-we-learn-when-we-learn-economics/

Mr Hayes, who in 2000 got a BA (Philosophy) from Brown University, comes across as intensely intellectually curious. He nicely critiques the lecturer’s style, and, with an understanding that comes from going beyond the reading list, provides a fascinating, though necessarily brief account of the University of Chicago’s contribution to economics.

He is quick to point out the traditional criticism of University of Chicago economics – that it doesn’t always reconcile with how things work in the world. However, he goes further than the usual criticism by pointing out the often overlooked fact that introductory economics courses usually don’t expose students to situations where the University of Chicago theories fall apart.

Students for whom first-year is their only exposure to economics will have a false sense of economics – those who disagree with the conclusions put forth will think that economics has nothing to offer them; those who agree will not appreciate the caveats that apply.

Mr Hayes quotes his friend “A little economics can be a dangerous thing… An intro econ course is necessarily going to be superficial. You deal with highly stylized models that are robbed of context, that take place in a world unmediated by norms and institutions. Much of the most interesting work in economics right now calls into question the Econ 101 assumptions of rationality, individualism, maximizing behavior, etc. But, of course, if you don't go any further than Econ 101, you won't know that the textbook models are not the way the world really works, and that there are tons of empirical studies out there that demonstrate this.”

I’d agree with Mr Hayes’ friend that a little economics can be a dangerous thing. There is clearly more to economics than nicely-working markets, but I’m not sure this comes across in first-year courses. How the teaching of economics will change given the global recession is unclear at this time, but if it causes lecturers to make the shortcomings and limitations of the models clearer, this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

I’ll conclude with another quote from Mr Hayes’ article that nicely exemplifies the spirit embodied by EconArticles: ‘I now understand that any one school of economics can’t explain and predict all the intricacies of human economies.’