Improving Undergraduate Economics

Flamed Diving

Robbing this idea from a thread in the Geography forum, but how would you improve things if given the chance? Doesn't matter if you are general or just speaking of one college.

Personally, I would introduce a History of Economic Thought module. As my experience goes, there are too many people who understand the maths without knowing what lays behind it all. Almost every class I have taken involved watching a lecturer moving lines from one equilibrium to another algebraically, or otherwise. Of course, it must be done, but I think it reveals with one hand, while it conceals with another. Hence the need to bring a few 'thinky' classes back.

Oh, and a lot more emphasis on lab work. I have taught myself most of what I know in this dept, which is a bit ridiculous.

Économiste Monétaire

UCD has an undergraduate History of Economic Thought module, Cormac lectures this class, but I agree it's a good idea to include these in course programmes. By labs do you mean using Stata/R/RATS, Matlab/CPLEX, et cetera for practical experience?

Flamed Diving

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

UCD has an undergraduate History of Economic Thought module, Cormac lectures this class, but I agree it's a good idea to include these in course programmes. By labs do you mean using Stata/R/RATS, Matlab/CPLEX, et cetera for practical experience?

Yeah, more program experience. The most I ever had was one hour per week. I would double this, at least. Could be a module in itself, actually. It would allow more room for mini-theses.

Flamed Diving

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Yeah, more program experience. The most I ever had was one hour per week. I would double this, at least. Could be a module in itself, actually. It would allow more room for mini-theses.

Don't forget though that a lot of people who do economics aren't going to go into the profession and for those who do enter the field, the masters (and now increasingly the PhD) is seen as the required element, not the undergrad.

Flamed Diving

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't forget though that a lot of people who do economics aren't going to go into the profession and for those who do enter the field, the masters (and now increasingly the PhD) is seen as the required element, not the undergrad.

I guess, but the module wouldn't be compulsory at undergrad. Sure, we can talk about masters level, too. Through a twist of fate, I have experienced masters at both our country's finest, and there really wasn't enough push on the lab work. Surely, at MA level, there should be rigorous and varied software learning.

Not necessarily, I would see it as the job of the lecturer to teach me the theory and give an insight into the application.

In Warwick, with every econometric concept we were given the stata codes, but what you did with them was up to you. The teaching of the programming came from one course in the first term which ensured a common basic level of understanding and then from your thesis (if you did an applied project, I didn't).

But I would be happier learning the maths rather then stata / matlab code as you can teach yourself code easier then you can teach yourself economics. Efficient use of scarce resources and all that.

I taught myself matlab to the level that my thesis required. I'm happier it was that way rather then me loosing time learning the maths in order to gain code. I would rather see more courses based on maths rather then coding. A better understanding of topology would, I think, stand to me more then computer classes. Especially as people prefer different programs and various programs suit some people more then others.

From talking to people who lecture in CS, they would like to see people learning the theory of code rather then a language. A couple of courses in programming theory make it much easier to learn a variety of coding languages and techniques.

Wow, that post was awfully rambly!

Slippers 2

The module mentioned by ÉM: link

Flamed Diving

Deleted User wrote: »

Not necessarily, I would see it as the job of the lecturer to teach me the theory and give an insight into the application.

In Warwick, with every econometric concept we were given the stata codes, but what you did with them was up to you. The teaching of the programming came from one course in the first term which ensured a common basic level of understanding and then from your thesis (if you did an applied project, I didn't).

But I would be happier learning the maths rather then stata / matlab code as you can teach yourself code easier then you can teach yourself economics. Efficient use of scarce resources and all that.

I taught myself matlab to the level that my thesis required. I'm happier it was that way rather then me loosing time learning the maths in order to gain code. I would rather see more courses based on maths rather then coding. A better understanding of topology would, I think, stand to me more then computer classes. Especially as people prefer different programs and various programs suit some people more then others.

From talking to people who lecture in CS, they would like to see people learning the theory of code rather then a language. A couple of courses in programming theory make it much easier to learn a variety of coding languages and techniques.

I agree with all that. If resources are that constrained, then economic theory must take first preference. Where possible, more labs should be brought in. Even to teach programming, like you said.

nesf

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

UCD has an undergraduate History of Economic Thought module, Cormac lectures this class, but I agree it's a good idea to include these in course programmes.

Now you're making me regret not going to UCD.

Ostrom

I think there is a BA in Economic and Social history coming on stream at NUIM soon, cant find module details. Joint Economics/History department

BESman

NUIG has a History of Economic Thought module at undergrad level and it was my favourite subject if I remember correctly. It also had econometrics with some labs, but most lab teaching was left to the masters and that was mostly Stata and SPSS.

andrew

+1 on the Economic history point. The economy of Ireland module in TCD has an economic history component, sorta, but I think it'd be real interesting to learn about the development in economic thought over time. It'd probably allow a better grasp of some economic theories too. Phillip Lane, if you're listening...

I wouldn't say that it'd be necessary to devote much teaching to software given the huge amount of help available online for popular (and even not so popular) pieces of software. Software's a procedural thing, not theoretical, so all you need is for someone to point out some steps to you; doing so in the context of a class seems like it'd be a waste of time. That said, if you're going to be programming stuff in Python or whatever a class would be handy, but even then it's still something which can be learned from a book.

Given the (relatively clear cut?) distinction between micro and macro, I'd like (or would've liked anyway) to be able to just do macro earlier rather than having to wait until 3rd year. Is it possible in other colleges?

nesf

Got a book actually that I found fascinating on this topic. It's Blackwell's Companion to the History of Economic Thought. What was really enlightening was reading about the developement the driving philosophical forces behind economic reasoning that so shaped the theories that we see while being educated in the subject. The essay(s) on the development of rationality in microeconomics during the 70s and 80s were particularly fascinating, if only to see how it broke down and because far too abstract over time before reaching it's modern compromises etc.

blucey

best course i ever took (albeit at graduate level) was a History of Economic Thought course by David Laidler
At undergrad whats needed imho is LESS math. More economic and business history , some decent applied stats courses and some analytical thinking, as well as a course in socioeconomics ; people need to recall that economics is NOT a branch of applied mathematics, its a social science that occasionally uses mathematical logic in theory formulation and sometimes requires a knowledge of mathematical statistics to go beyond the menu in statistics.
People who want to go to academia or more advanced research need to understand theory and that requires math.

noodler

I did Cormac's module during the MA and found it very interesting.

I thought the Stata and lab work during the MA was below average - I consider myself to have been a fairly applied student but I too agree that anything that was learned was done so the hard way. I certainly didn't feel the basics were practically well thought.

Of course, this is an undergrad thread but I understand econometrics is now compulsory in third year? That is great news - I was unfortunate enough not to select it as an undergrad and found it put me at a huge disadvantage to start with when it came to the postgrad.

I rather think the MCQs are a waste of time and are pretty unreflective. At least they take place more in Blackrock these days though instead of packed to capacity lecture halls.

EDIT: Some of the textbook choices should be reviewed too. The best Macro book I ever had was Mankiw's Intermediate Macroeconomics which was prescribed by John Sheehan in 2nd year. Even acknowledging the material gets a little harder in final and MA years, I found the subsequent books to be awful.

I just think the choice of main textbook, which will be will make a huge difference to whether or not the more casual students simply try to get by on notes, is essential to ensure a broader knowledge that isn't soley based on passing the relevant exam.

Tricity Bendix

Every course should have some sort of applied or research based element. Rote learning for an exam at the end of the term/semester doesn't teach an undergrad anything. I've had some pretty good lecturers, but without getting a glimpse of how the stuff that I was learning might be applied to the real world, I forgot the material pretty quickly. I've also had some dodgy lecturers, but I've kept what they taught me because I had to use it for a project. This will also have the knock-on effect of getting undergrads used to seeing data sets and programs.

New Ideas From Dead Economists should be on every first year reading list.

Économiste Monétaire

Just assign Recursive Macroeconomic Theory to first-years and ask them to come back three years later for an exam :pac:. I'm surprised TCD doesn't have a HoET module, given Antoin Murphy is there.

Tricity Bendix

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

Just assign Recursive Macroeconomic Theory to first-years and ask them to come back three years later for an exam :pac:. I'm surprised TCD doesn't have a HoET module, given Antoin Murphy is there.

He does a course on the history of monetary policy, which takes in many of the big names. But you're right, he should have a course specifically titled History of Economic Thought. Even if it was just an optional thing in second year. T'would give those people wanting to specialise in economics an option other than Sean Barrett's dodgy public policy class.

Time Magazine

I enjoyed this debate, of which there's now a podcast freely available on iTunes. The most interesting point raised imho was that anything that is taught to undergraduates should have a rigorous empirical basis.

I think changing the public's perception of what economics is would be a great step for undergraduate education. People don't realise how theoretical and quantitative economics is. Certainly the LC didn't give that impression to me way back when. When my parents think of economists, they think of Eddie Hobbs. (Well, at least they did pre-NAMA et al.) If kids enter the degree knowing that they're going to learn about modelling life, and then testing it with piles of data, then that's the first step overcome. They won't wonder why they're being taught calculus again, and they can self-select themselves into policy- or research-orientated streams from, say, second year.

andrew wrote: »

+1 on the Economic history point. The economy of Ireland module in TCD has an economic history component, sorta, but I think it'd be real interesting to learn about the development in economic thought over time. It'd probably allow a better grasp of some economic theories too. Phillip Lane, if you're listening...

Kevin O'Rourke teaches economic history by another name.

And there used be Antoin's course.