This paper outlines a curriculum reform of economics at the undergraduate level in Western universities centred around eight main themes and which follows a pluralistic, interdisciplinary approach. The aim is to liberate teaching from the stultifying grips of neoclassical economics and its...

This paper aims to quantify the effectiveness of teaching economics with video exemplars, mainly the US TV show The Simpsons. We regress students' exam scores on their performance on Simpsons and non-Simpsons pop quizzes. After controlling for students' quality difference and exam content, our...

Economics teaching relies overwhelmingly on faculty lecturing, which is generally seen as a significant pedagogical problem. But this paper argues that didactic instruction is actually well-suited to the neoclassical economics that is usually taught. This approach – especially its textbook...

In 1985 the Department of Economics at Dickinson College USA, a private four year liberal arts college, embarked upon a bold but promising reform of its economics programme placing it on the cutting edge of what is now called 'pluralist economics education'. This new approach to the philosophy...

As with other sciences, the author argues that there are no unquestionable ideas in economics, and attempts to impose "No Child Left Behind" K-12 type "technical standards" in universities will turn higher education in economics into remedial education. Students need to learn that the very...

We developed three hypotheses and a case study involving a sample of 203 students enrolled in four introductory microeconomics classes during the spring semesters of 2007 and 2009 to examine the effects of prior exam performance on increments for current in- and out-of-classroom efforts toward...

"It is a measure of Professor Samuelson’s preeminence that the sheer scale of his work should be so much taken for granted," a reviewer for the Economist once observed, marking both Paul Samuelson’s influence and his astonishing prolificacy. Volumes 6 and 7 gather the Nobel Laureate’s...

University departments of economics have to move from monism to pluralism in the sense of encouraging competing theoretical perspectives. The tension between monism and pluralism is not limited to economics paradigms but also concerns theory of science and ideological orientation. It is argued...

Until about 1870 economics was referred to as 'political economics' and it is here argued that it was a mistake to abandon this terminology. Mainstream neoclassical economics is specific in scientific and conceptual terms but also in ideological terms. Similarly, other theoretical perspectives...