Transforming the economics curriculum around the world

Since the global financial crisis eight years ago, students, academics and professional economists come have come together to form the international network Rethinking Economics, which has been calling for a better economics education in response to a discipline unfit for purpose.

In 2008, when the British Monarch asked an assembly of economists at the London School of Economics why “no one saw this coming”, it was indicative of a subject that has for the past 30 years become increasingly narrow and detached from the real world.

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman suggested one year later that the economics profession went astray because “economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth”.

For students at Rethinking Economics, it is clear that the shortcomings of economics as a body of knowledge is tied intimately with a failure to properly equip future practitioners of the profession with the necessary intellectual and practical skills.

A 2015 survey by the Economics Network found that a considerable number of employers of economics graduates said that graduates lack critical self-awareness, general creative and imaginative powers, an ability to communicate clearly in writing and an ability to apply what has been learned in a wider context.

An international survey of 350 bachelor modules in 13 countries found only 7% mentioned contemporary economic problems (inequality, development, the environment), while only 4.5% were concerned with economic history. This is in contrast to the 35% of modules dedicated to mathematics, statistics and management studies.

It is a clear trend that economics graduates – dominant in the world of policy-making – are failing to think critically and independently and to develop successful solutions to the challenges of the 21st century.

Real world economics

How can future generations of policy-makers – plus the academic community and media commentators – be better equipped to tackle these problems?

Rethinking Economics believes in an economics education that situates a plurality of economic theories within a historical context, applies these to the real world and emphasises an understanding of other social sciences, including the political and ethical dilemmas within economics.

Rather than lecturers teaching a seemingly singular legitimate way of doing economics and seminars asking students to memorise and regurgitate abstract theory, we are advocating exposure to a range of economic perspectives which students are encouraged to engage with critically, thus empowering them to use what they have learned to deal with the complexity, diversity and changeability of the real economy.

At the local, national and international level, students in 80 associations spanning 35 countries and six continents are reforming a curriculum that is unfit for purpose.

Local groups have planned events to introduce fellow students to alternative economic perspectives, the largest of which have spanned whole weekends, attracting audiences of over 400 and the world’s leading economists.

Groups have lobbied their economic departments to change the curriculum, with some success, and at the universities of Manchester and Cambridge research has been produced detailing the deficiencies of undergraduate education and demand for change, respectively.

Diversity of views

In the United Kingdom, students have affected change at the national level and now hold a seat on the Quality Assurance Agency’s Subject Benchmark Statement for Economics, which sets expectations for what a graduate must know. Moreover, where previously universities had been required to teach ‘economic theory’, they must now teach ‘economic theories’.

In collaboration with economic historian Lord Robert Skidelsky, we are creating a template of what economics education at the bachelor level should look like.

From Summer 2016 to Spring 2017 we have three publications due for release: a book outlining the power of economics practitioners in society and the deficiencies of these practitioners, published by Manchester University Press; an employer’s report demonstrating support for curriculum reform among employers of economics graduates; and a ‘Rethinking Reader’ intended as a companion for undergraduates, introducing a range of economic theories.

Perhaps most excitingly, students are becoming increasingly organised at an international level. Following an inaugural International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics general assembly in Tübingen, Germany, in 2014, students drafted an open letter detailing our shared aims.

This has subsequently been celebrated with two annual Global Action Days and, most recently, at our second general assembly in Paris. It was here that we published our international survey detailed above and discussed plans for further collaboration.

The economics curriculum is changing, and to keep making the progress we have, Rethinking Economics relies on an active community of students, academics and professionals. This is just the beginning.

Calum Mitchell is an organiser at Rethinking Economics – the international network of students, academics and professionals changing economics for the better. If you’re interested in contributing to one of Rethinking Economics' projects or simply making your support known, email them at membership@rethinkeconomics.org to learn more.