Professional Developments and Opportunities

Surveys in 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010 investigated teaching and assessment methods in different undergraduate courses. In this article, the authors offer basic results from the 2010 survey. “Chalk and talk” remains the dominant teaching style, but there were drops in mean (although not median) values for those pedagogies and some growth in the use of other methods, including class discussion and computer-generated displays. More instructors provided students with problem sets and class notes, and computer lab assignments were increasingly common in econometrics and statistics courses. Experiments are occasionally used in introductory courses but almost never used in other courses. Calculus is not viewed as important by a majority of instructors in any courses but is considered more important in intermediate theory and statistics and econometrics courses.     

How Departments of Economics Evaluate Teaching

Based on results from a 1999 national survey, William Becker and Michael Watts found that student evaluations of teaching were by far the most widely used, and often the only method used by economics departments, to evaluate teaching in undergraduate economics courses. To investigate whether departments of economics have moved beyond the use of student evaluations of teaching, in 2011 the current authors conducted a national survey of departments based largely on questions used in the 1999 survey. The surveys included items on how courses and teaching are evaluated, and on how that information is used in departmental promotion and salary decisions.     

A Benchmark Profile of Economics Departments in 15 Private Universities

During the spring of 1999, the authors completed a benchmarking survey of 15 economics departments in private universities as part of a strategic planning exercise. All are selective medium-sized institutions that experience roughly the same types of market pressures and compete for the same types of students. The authors report the information gleaned from the survey concerning such items as departmental resources, teaching loads, class sizes, departmental research expectations, and weights given to research, teaching, and service in salary determination and promotion. The authors believe that their results and methods might be useful to other economics departments engaging in bench-marking exercises.     

Impostors in the Temple,by Martin Anderson

The Teaching Innovations Program (TIP) was a six-year project funded by the National Science Foundation that gave economics instructors the opportunity to learn interactive teaching strategies for use in undergraduate economics courses. TIP participants first attended a teaching workshop that presented various teaching strategies. They then could enroll in a follow-up program of online instruction and mentoring to learn more about one or two teaching strategies. TIP participants also had the opportunity to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning economics to share their work. A retrospective survey was administered to the participants after attending the program to obtain a longitudinal assessment of TIP. This article presents the overall survey findings and discusses the results from each TIP phase (workshop, online instruction, and scholarship).     

The generosity of the welfare state towards the elderly

This paper distinguishes among three types of generosity of social security systems: average generosity, generosity towards early retirement and generosity towards the poor. On the basis of theoretical predictions, it examines the statistical correlations among those types of generosity for 14 OECD countries over the period 1985–2000. It also shows how they have evolved over time and tries to relate this evolution to the process of economic integration. There are three main findings, the first one being a positive relation between average social security spending and poverty alleviation. There is the negative relation between average spending and inequality reduction. Finally, over the period 1985–1995 one sees that poverty alleviation increases on average, but to a degree that decreases with economic openness.     

How is development economics taught in developing countries?

A survey of instructors and data collected from course syllabi and examinations are used to examine how the subject of development economics is taught at the undergraduate and master's levels in developing countries, compared to undergraduate classes in the United States. Topic coverage, teaching approach, and means of assessment all differ from that in leading U.S. economics departments. Development economics is taught largely as a theoretical subject coupled with case studies in developing countries, with few courses emphasizing use of data or empirical methods. Limited financial resources, the educational level of students, and low involvement of instructors in research are considered as explanations for the way the subject is taught in developing countries. The authors conclude with suggestions for improving teaching of development economics.     

Research Ethics Education in Economics

Abstract

In this paper, we report the findings from the data we collected from a survey in order to measure how common research ethics education in economics is. We have found out that (1) research ethics is taught in only a very few economics departments around the globe; (2) topics related to research ethics are not taught in courses on economics and ethics; and (3) the number of papers published in specialised peer-reviewed journals on economics education is only a tiny fraction of the number of papers published in these journals. There has been no evidence in economics showing that economics departments have taken strong initiative on teaching research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students.     

Pooling surveys in the estimation of income and price elasticities: An application to Tunisian households

This paper presents a methodological extension of Deaton's (1990) model for estimating price elasticities, by pooling Tunisian data from several surveys to improve the inter-cluster variability of unit values which is one of the key elements used in the derivation of these elasticities. Since the surveys cover a relatively long period, possible structural changes in consumption behaviour occurring over time are accounted for by postulating that certain response coefficients of the basic model vary from one survey to the other. The own price and cross price elasticities calculated using appropriate estimates of the extended model are satisfactory both from the economic point of view of their sign and the statistical point of view of their significance and superior to those obtained using a single survey. First version received: April 2000/Final version received: June 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  The authors would like to thank Angus Deaton and anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions.     

Consensus Among Economists—An Update

In this article, the authors explore consensus among economists on specific propositions based on a fall 2011 survey of American Economic Association members. Results are based on 568 responses and provide evidence of changes in opinion over time by including propositions from earlier studies in 2000 (Fuller and Geide-Stevenson 2003) and 1992 (Alston, Kearl, and Vaughan 1992). Propositions focus on microeconomics, macroeconomics, distributional and international topics, as well as pedagogy. Results indicate a movement toward an overall higher level of consensus, mainly because of a drop in the incidence of no consensus. Especially in the area of distributional propositions, economists display an increased concern with income inequality and potential effects on growth. In the area of macroeconomics, current opinions are more similar to those of the 1992 survey than the 2000 survey.     

高校思想政治理论课教学状况调查

通过对云南大学400名在校大一、大二学生的抽样问卷调查,从大学生学习思想政治理论课的动机和态度、参与课堂教学实践的情况、对教学内容等方面的评价和对教师的评价四个方面了解高校思想政治理论课教学现状。     

Does studying economics in college influence loan decisions later in life?

The authors investigate the relationship between undergraduate economics coursework or majoring in economics and the debt behavior of the college graduates. The data come from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) longitudinal survey of the National Center for Education Statistics. College graduates who took courses in undergraduate economics or majored in the subject appear less willing to assume debt through auto loans or federal student loans. If they do assume debt, the amount of the monthly payment (auto loans) or the total amount owed (student loans) is less for college graduates with economics coursework or an economics major compared with other students. The findings are robust for college graduates one year and four years after graduation.     

Teaching Macroeconomics After the Crisis: A Survey Among Undergraduate Instructors in Europe and the United States

The Great Recession raised questions of what and how macroeconomists teach at academic institutions around the globe, and what changes in the macroeconomics curriculum should be made. The authors conducted a survey of undergraduate macroeconomics instructors affiliated with colleges and universities in Europe and the United States at the end of 2010. The results show that courses feature very much the same lineups of models as they did before the crisis. A notable exception concerns public debt dynamics, which receives considerably more emphasis. The finer fabric of undergraduate macroeconomics teaching, however, shows substantial shifts: A host of topics related to financial markets has entered the curriculum, and there is more interest in economic history, the history of economic thought, and case studies.     

Herding in the Italian Stock Market: A Case of Behavioral Finance

This article studies the herding effect in the capital markets. Using data from the Italian Stock Exchange, the authors test for the presence of herding as described in Christie and Huang [1995], Chang, Cheng, and Khorana [2000], and Hwang and Salmon [2001]. The tests support Christie and Huang's conclusions that herding is present in extreme market conditions.     

Efficient empiricism: Streamlining teaching,research, and learning in empirical courses

The increasing importance of empirical analysis in economics highlights the need for efficient ways to bring these skills to the classroom. R Markdown is a new technology that provides a solution by integrating writing, statistical work and computation into a single document. R Markdown benefits students and instructors by streamlining teaching, research, and collaboration. The authors report on their use of R Markdown in undergraduate teaching, including core courses, electives, and senior theses. They discuss the costs and benefits of adoption, and explain the advantages of R Markdown in teaching reproducibility of empirical work, avoiding time-consuming and error-prone “cut and paste,” and facilitating a one-stop solution for importing, cleaning, manipulating, visualizing, and communicating with data.     

A mark II survey and critique of future research teaching in North America

In 1970, an initial survey was carried out on teaching futurism at the undergraduate level based on forty courses that could be located in Canada and the United States (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, December 1970). During 1971 and 1972, information was collected, primarily by a replicated questionnaire, on approximately 200 courses in North America; this was reported on to the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest (September 1972) indicating major changes that had occured over the two-year period in the field. Six generalizations were made: (1) Futurism is becoming increasingly institutionalized as more and more courses are being “futurized” to a greater or lesser degree. (2) Learning/teaching interaction tends increasingly to employ innovative or “futuristic” techniques. (3) Much influential and seminal work in future research is not made by “futurists” per se, but enters the field from outside: technological forecasting and assessment, systems analysis, gaming, model building, etc. (4) Interdisciplinary future-oriented research on contemporary problems may be adding a new dimension to human capability. (5) There is still much froth and nonsense in “futuristics”, but can future research be truly innovative without such imaginative inputs? (6) Future research may turn out to be merely a subset in the policy sciences, i.e., delivery systems.     

The BMW Model: A New Framework for Teaching Monetary Economics

Abstract: Although the IS/LM-AS/AD model is still the central tool of macroeconomic teaching in most macroeconomic textbooks, it has been criticized by several economists. Colander (1995) demonstrated that the framework is logically inconsistent, Romer (2000) showed that it is unable to deal with a monetary policy that uses the interest rate as its operating target, and Walsh criticized that it is not well suited for an analysis of inflation targeting. The authors present a framework that develops the Romer approach into a very simple but, at the same time, comprehensive macroeconomic model. In spite of its simplicity, it can carry the main insights of the New Keynesian macroeconomics to an intermediate level and deal with issues like inflation targeting, monetary policy rules, and central bank credibility.     

Behavioral Objectives and Student Learning Contracts in the Teaching of Economics

The authors present a series of writing assignments that teaches students how to evaluate and critique the written economic work of others. The foundation text is McCloskey's (2000) Economical Writing. The students' dialogues with McCloskey, with each other, and with the authors of the pieces they evaluate sharpen their understanding of, and ability to use, language as an instrument of economic thought. Interviews with former students identify specific benefits from the student perspective of this approach. The authors show how the assignment series can be modified in several ways and how the general approach, as well as the foundation text, can be used in different economics courses.     

The Effects of New Goods and Substitution on the Korean CPI as a Measure of Cost of Living

This paper estimates upper-level substitution and new-goods bias in the Korean Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. It has been estimated that the upper-level substitution bias in the CPI alone increased the inflation rate by 0.51 percentage points per year over the 13-year period between 1990 and 2002. The new-goods bias further increased the inflation rate by 0.17 and 0.13 percentage points per year between 1990-1995 and 1995-2000 respectively. The Chained Laspeyres index series that is based on annually-updated weights has been found to correct less than half of the upper-level substitution bias.     

Online Teaching Resources: A New Journal Section

Most economics departments use end-of-term student evaluations of teaching, but the relationship between instructors' assessments of their own teaching and their students' assessments is unknown. The background survey for the nationally normed Test of Understanding in College Economics asked students and instructors to evaluate the instructor on five identical items. Using these data, the authors found that for instructors who speak English as their native language, speaking ability and enthusiasm are closely linked to self-ratings of teaching effectiveness. Students also value these traits but care more about instructors' preparation for class. Grading rigor is more important to students of instructors who speak English as a second language.     

Derivatives holdings and market values of U.S. bank holding companies

We examine the impact of derivatives held by US bank holding companies on their market valuations over the period 2000 to 2010. By using bank-level data with detailed information on the notional amounts of derivative positions according to holding purposes and underlying asset types, our regression analyses provide three main findings. First, derivative instruments held for hedging rather than trading purposes contribute to enhancing market values. Second, the positive effects exhibit nonmonotonic patterns indicating that excessive amounts of derivatives holdings deteriorate market values. Third, interest rate derivatives are the main source of high valuations.