Using Electronic Response Systems in Economics Classes

College instructors and students participated in a pilot project at the University of Akron to enhance student learning through the use of a common teaching pedagogy, peer instruction. The teaching pedagogy was supported by the use of technology, an electronic personal response system, which recorded student responses. The authors report their experiences in using this technology-enhanced teaching pedagogy and provide another example of an active and collaborative learning tool that instructors can use to move beyond “chalk and talk.” Preliminary survey results from students participating in this pilot project are also reported.     

A Dream Experiment in Development Economics

In this article, the authors discuss a unique project carried out by 13 teams of four students each in the undergraduate Development Economics class during the 2012 spring semester at a private liberal arts college. The goal of the “Dream Experiment” was to think of an idea that promotes development, employs concepts from development economics, uses a real-world situation from a developing country, and has implications for policy if the experiment goes ahead. The authors present details of the project's modus operandi, provide a case study as an example, and highlight lessons for economics pedagogy.     

Equity or intention: it is the thought that counts

Economists theorize how and when other-regarding behavior determines experimental outcomes. Two approaches are: (1) explicitly model fairness—intentions matter and (2) use inequity aversion as a proxy for fairness—only the outcome matters. The first approach is consistent with people behaving as though they think, “He was as fair as he could be; do not punish him”. The second approach is consistent with people behaving as though they think, “Despite his best efforts, the outcome was inequitable; punish him”. The results of this experiment are consistent with the fairness-based model, that is, “It is the thought that counts”.     

《动画运动规律》创新模块化教学模式的探讨

伴随高校招生规模的日益扩大,各专业学科在教学上都在寻求更大的突破,如何将“教”与“学”转换为“学以致用”,成为各高校研究的重点课题。以《动画运动规律》为例,根据该课程的学科特点对其进行分割式的模块化教学,通过一个班历时一学期的课程教学实践,对比学生的学习情况,使得该门课程在教学上更加立体化、多元化,大大调动学生的学习兴趣,从而摆脱了原有的单一教学方式,通过实践证明课程模块的分割,最终达到“学以致用”的教学目的。     

实地调查基础之上的研究报告写作

本文从教学与科研相结合的视角,探讨强化经济系研究生与科研新人专业写作能力的有效途径。首先,针对研究生基本功欠缺的问题,借助案例分析,说明“从学习中研究”和“从研究中学习”的“补课”方法。其次,以专题调研项目执行中的能力建设为例,阐述如何通过以“干中学”为主的团队专业训练方式,对科研队伍新人加以引导。最后,对于实地调查基础之上的研究报告写作要领,引用范例加以扼要提示。     

Heterodox Economic Thinking and Public Policy

Research on innovation and entrepreneurship policy (IEP) is almost exclusively concerned with the instrumental question of which policy measures are most effective in promoting “productive” entrepreneurial activities. The positive (political economy) and normative (welfare) dimensions are largely neglected. I focus on the latter, asking what could be a plausible normative rationale for innovation policy beyond the simple invocation of “growth” and the related use of orthodox criteria (such as “market failure”). This is a non-trivial issue, given (i) the ambiguous welfare implications of innovation in general, and (ii) the fact that standard notions of welfare cannot be consistently applied in an entrepreneurial, “Schumpeterian” economy. I suggest a dynamic criterion according to which IEP should ensure that individuals are able to engage in effective preference learning over time. This reconstruction of the normative basis of innovation policy helps clarify several contentious issues, among which are the desirability of selfemployment and the role of social security arrangements.     

Diversity as a Means of Individualizing Instruction

Judith Yates asserts that “… tests do not necessarily enable us to infer anything about what students have learned or the manner in which they have learned it.” She then concentrates on the tailoring of instruction to the individual, discussing the evidence for the existence of many different learning styles, and the possible influence of these styles on learning. She explains the concepts of “field independence” and “field dependence,” and presents their possible implications for economic education.     

Real-World Economics Today:The New Complexity,Co-ordination and Policy

More realistic economics has to start out from the most basic socio-economic phenomena and processes, i.e. dilemma-prone interdependencies and strong uncertainty among agents that have become ubiquitous phenomena in the world today. In the reality of the “new” economy these are represented by functional and spatial fragmentation of value-added chains, global de-regulation and disembedding of the most powerful economic agents, on one hand, and increasing complexity and high integration of goods and services and net-based tele-IC-technologies on the other hand. All these rather new phenomena entail ubiquitous actual or potential co-ordination failure, either in the form of conventional “market failure”, with a complete mutual blockage of action, or of “wrong” co-ordination, or technological “lock-in”. Both forms are indicative of an insufficient capacity of the co-ordinated action required. In contrast, capability of sustainable innovative action in a broad sense requires new forms of co-ordination beyond “market” and “hierarchy”. Economics thus has to be defined more than ever as a science of effective co-ordination and the generation of innovative and sustainable collective action capacity. The global corporate economy has developed individualist arrangements to cope with that new co-ordination problem, such as local clusters and hub&spoke networks, which all have severe shortcomings. Against this background, the paper develops a setting with ubiquitous direct interdependencies, net-externalities, “strategic” strong uncertainty and ubiquitous (latent) social-dilemma problems. It discusses the possibility of an ideal decentralized and spontaneous co-ordination through emergent institutionalized collective action, specifically of “well-governed” network co-operation. In conclusion, it is argued that only a hybrid system of networks together with a new public policy role, supporting collective learning and emergent institutional co-ordination, i.e. an “interactive” and “institutional” policy approach, is capable of solving the co-ordination problems of the “new” economy.     

Test Information: An Application of the Economics of Search

The author reports on an experiment that permits cheating behavior to be observed rather than self-reported as in a questionnaire survey. In two sections of a course examined on the same day, 50 percent of the questions were repeated on the second exam. It was found that an average of 36 percent of the students on the second test had used information acquired from the first test. Several predictions about cheating behavior were tested by a multivariate technique. The main result was to be expected: majors, better students, and those voluntarily in the course cheated relatively less. But working students also cheated less.

The author does not think this behavior, although not considered “serious” cheating, is entirely victimless, and calls into question the equity of grades.     

Lessons from the Specific Factors Model of International Trade

The Specific Factors model is an excellent learning tool. It provides insights into the meaning of economic efficiency, how complex economies simultaneously determine prices and quantities (and that it is relative prices that matter), and how changes in demand conditions or technology can affect income distributions among owners of factors of production. The authors develop this model using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets help students deal with “what-if” questions within prepared spreadsheets. They also give students the chance to look into the workings of the model and to change its structure. The exercise spreadsheets provide important advantages over using “black-box” presentations. Moreover, using spreadsheets gives students an opportunity to practice their use of spreadsheet software.