In the information age, an exchange with the media is part of the duties the economics profession has to deliver to educate the public. A key issue is the education of policymakers through the media. It is the silver bullet of policy advice in comparison to commissioned research and face-to-face...

Over the past two decades, the rising number of outlets for communication through cable networks and electronic broadcasting (not to mention selfpromoting Web “blogsâ€) has stimulated the demand for economic commentary. Only the academic economist, as “public intellectual,â€...

Using 1994–1995 data, Nieswiadomy (1998) found that economics majors scored well on the Law School Admissions Test. These results are frequently posted on university Web sites by economics departments. However, because the results are nearly 10 years old, it may be interesting to...

The authors present a constructivist approach for teaching game theory, on the basis, in part, of Axelrod’s research approach. Using the Axelrod tournament multi-user system (ATMUS) software, students create strategies for a repeated prisoner’s dilemma (RPD). Later, these...

There is a difference between the private and social cost of preserving the past. Although it may be privately rational to forget the past, the social cost is significant: We fail to see that classical political economy is analytically egalitarian. The past is a rich source of surprises and...

The average score of economics majors on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) exceeds those of nearly all humanities and arts, social sciences, and business undergraduate majors but not those of most science, engineering, and mathematics majors.

Most states have adopted high school economics standards, but implementation efforts face two hurdles: evidence indicates that five or six college-level economics courses are needed for high school economics teachers and that stand-alone high school economics classes are more effective than...

An increasing number of academic institutions are considering changing to Web-based systems to take advantage of efficiencies in the collection of end-of-semester course evaluations. In considering such a change it is important that researchers determine whether it will affect mean evaluation...

The authors describe an in-class exercise in which students participate in an auction to buy US Airways. The exercise is based on events of late 1995, in which neither United nor American Airlines decided to bid for US Airways. Two teams of students participate in an English auction. Students...

The cross-price elasticity concept can be difficult for microeconomics students to grasp. The authors provide a real-life application of cross-price elasticities in policymaking. After a debate that spanned more than a decade and included input from safety engineers, medical personnel,...