Perpetuating the Failure: Economic Education and the Current Crisis

While the current financial crisis had an overwhelming impact on the global economy, its effect on economics as an academic discipline has been negligible. This paper explores the relationship between the financial crisis, mainstream economic theory and the education of economists. In a nutshell it...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Walter Otto Ötsch, Jakob Kapeller
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Bielefeld University 2010-08-01
Series:Journal of Social Science Education
Online Access:http://www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/article/view/515
Description
Summary:While the current financial crisis had an overwhelming impact on the global economy, its effect on economics as an academic discipline has been negligible. This paper explores the relationship between the financial crisis, mainstream economic theory and the education of economists. In a nutshell it shows that (a) current economic education leaves students illiterate with respect to events like the financial crisis, (b) mainstream economic theory is unable to systemically explain the financial crisis and (c) this situation will be unaffected by the recent events. On the contrary economic education will stay pretty much the same, since it incorporates a set of ideas, perceived as influential, well-established and important by the economic community.
ISSN:1618-5293