1.1 — Introduction and Overview — Class Content
Overview
Welcome to ECON 452 — History of Economic Thought! Today’s lesson will be an introduction to the course and a bit about why the history of economics matters, explain in part by looking at the profession of economics today. Please read and familiarize yourself with the syllabus.
Readings
This week we will be covering elements of:
- Ch.1 in Landreth and Colander
- Ch.1 in Blaug 1996
I recommend reading this to get acquainted with some of the big picture ideas and debates we are going to wrestle with this semester, as well as the state of economics today. Regarding economics today, here are some articles that I mention in today’s class:
- Boettke, Fink, and Smith, 2012, “The Impact of Nobel Prize Winners in Economics: Mainline vs. Mainstream”
- Colander, 2015, “Intellectual Incest on the Charles: Why Economists are a little bit off”
- Cawley, 2018, “A Guide and Advice for Economists on the U.S. Junior Academic Job Market, 2018-2019 Edition”
- Heckman and Moktan, 2020, “Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five”
Please note going forward, the lesson numbers and topics (e.g. 1.1) on this website are my design, and will not match up with the textbook!
Slides
Below, you can find the slides in two formats. Clicking the image will bring you to the html version of the slides in a new tab. The lower button will allow you to download a PDF version of the slides.
You can type h to see a special list of viewing options, and type o for an outline view of all the slides.
I suggest printing the slides beforehand and using them to take additional notes in class (not everything is in the slides)!
