Economics need to change - now more than ever! With Exploring Economics, we strengthen alternative economic approaches and counter mainstream economics with a critical and pluralistic vision of economic education. We also provide background analyses on current economic debates to strengthen a critical economic discourse.
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Exploring Economics collects course descriptions, syllabi and slides so that lecturers can share ressources and innovate their teaching.
This syllabus was originally taught at University of Vienna of University ofEconomics and Business Summer Semester 2020.
Instructor: Alyssa Schneebaum
This course introduces students to political economy and the history of economic thought.
This course will cover the core ideas in various schools of economic thought, positioning them in the historical and institutional context in which they were developed. In particular, we will cover some economic ideas from the ancient world and the middle ages; the enlightenment; the emergence of and main ideas in classical political economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and others); Marx, Mill, and Keynes; European versus American economic thought through history; the rise of mathematical economics; economic theories around state-managed economies versus socialism; Austrian economics; behavioral economics; and the future of economics. Students in this class will have an excellent understanding of the development of economic thought over time, and be able to contextualize their economics education in the historical development of what has been understood as “economics.”
In the final paper for the course, students will reflect on the state of economics today, as they have been learning it thus far in their studies. The assignment is to describe their own classes thus far and to put them in the context of the ideas of political economy and history of economic thought that we have discussed all semester. The paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, 8-12 pages long. The paper should refer to academic literature, including selected books and papers covered in other classes, to make an argument about how your education is positioned in the scheme of “economics” today (which schools of thought are you being taught?) and throughout history (how does your education fit into the development of the field of economics)? In the essay, students should give a critical reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of the economics education they are receiving.
Grading for the paper:
All students need a copy of Roger E. Backhouse’s “The Penguin History of Economics.” There are a number of copies available for class participants to loan from the library.
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