Oetsch, Kapeller: Perpetuating the Failure: Economic Education and the Current Crisis

Journal of Social Science Education:

Volume 9, Number 2, pp 16-25, © JSSE 2010, ISSN 1618-5293

 

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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.