{"id":45043,"date":"2019-05-13T06:59:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T05:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=45043"},"modified":"2019-05-13T06:59:28","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T05:59:28","slug":"economics-is-still-teaching-dogma-and-techniques-wholly-unsuited-to-real-world-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/05\/13\/economics-is-still-teaching-dogma-and-techniques-wholly-unsuited-to-real-world-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics is still teaching dogma and techniques wholly unsuited to real world need"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joris Tieleman, a\u00a0<\/span>PhD Candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam, writing in The Conversation<\/a> has noted that:<\/p>\n

Economic thinking governs much of our world. But the discipline\u2019s teaching is stuck in the past. Centred around antiquated 19th-century models built on Newtonian physics, economics treats humans as atomic particles, rather than as social beings.<\/p>\n

While academic research often manages to transcend this simplicity<\/a>, undergraduate education does not<\/a> \u2014 and the influence of these simplified ideas is carried by graduates as they go on to work in politics, media, business and the civil service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In support of his hypothesis he adds that:<\/p>\n

Student members of the University of Manchester Post-Crash Economics Association wrote\u00a0a book\u00a0<\/a>surveying 174 economics modules at seven leading UK universities. They found that fewer than 10% covered anything other than mainstream economics. In the Netherlands, students\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that real-world problems, from climate change to inequality, were seriously treated in only 6% of all modules and that only 2% of methods courses were not focused on statistical work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he then notes current research on the teaching of economics in The Netherlands:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I share his view that this is a disaster for the atudents involved, who receive an education almost wholly unsuited as preparation for the real world. They will leave utterly unable to appraise the economic questions they address.<\/p>\n

And the bias in their training has consequences. Those taught to treat people as means do just that. No wonder we have ended up with the callousness of neoliberal politics.<\/p>\n

I would love to think there was enthusiasm to address this issue. But I do not see it. All I see is continuing economic illiteracy from those taught in this way. And that is one of the biggest obstacles I know of to saving the planet, which is why this matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joris Tieleman, a\u00a0PhD Candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam, writing in The Conversation has noted that: Economic thinking governs much of our world. But the discipline\u2019s
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}