What is wrong with the teaching of Economics?

“An idea whose time has come again: Maybe it will take a little longer than 2040 to fulfil Goldman Sach’s prediction that the world’s ten biggest economies, using market exchange rates, will include Brazil, Russia, Mexico, India and China. But these are arguments about when, not whether, change will happen. And things could speed up…This shift is not as extraordinary as it first seems. A historical perspective shows it to be the restoration of the old order. After all, China and India were the world’s biggest economies until the mid-19th century, when technology and a spirit of freedom enabled the West to leap ahead…. There are weaknesses in some growth stories. China’s population is ageing and India’s schools are rotten….”- The Economist, September 16, 2006.

“A few years ago, I predicted that the time would come when a person’s wages and standard of living would no longer be determined by the country they live in, but instead would be a result of the education they have had. Today we start to see this vision becoming a reality in India. The challenge is to extend progress and opportunity to every section of society and every corner of the nation. If government, business and non-profits continue to work together to bridge the digital divide and enable India to realise its potential to become a creator of intellectual capital. I believe you will truly become a nation where everyone has the opportunity to achieve their potential.” – Bill Gates, Outlook, 21 August 2006.

Both the above quotes show that India definitely has potential to make it to the top, but this depends largely on the quality of education.

The 8% growth-rate has become a way of life for Indians… Reforms have pulled millions out of poverty and misery… If we can achieve a 10% growth-rate in the near future, most of the poverty will vanish… How do we plug in the leakage of 2%??? It’s the crumbling infrastructure and the rotten education system, stupid…

We need to start somewhere… the first step would be to throw away the age-old books. If mid-day meals can do the wonder in rural areas, good books too can do the trick in our schools and colleges! This will surely attract students to read more and to enjoy what they are reading.

Look at our economics textbooks, there is no humour, no pictures, no colour… all you can find is tons and tons of boring statistics and meaningless sentences… How do you expect students to even read them, leave apart learn from them… Well, if anything they can surely work as a remedy for insomnia!!!

Besides they do nothing to satisfy the increased curiosity towards economics throughout the country. A curiosity aroused by the second fastest growing economy in the world suddenly having to face rising inflation and a global slowdown. The Indian economy has been growing at very impressive rates of 7 – 8 % in the last 4 – 5 years. However suddenly it looks like the rising prices would spoil the party. Many people want to read, understand and learn economics. In the classroom too it is always treated as a dry subject dealing with abstract theories. Once we change our old textbooks and the teachers get used to new tools of learning such as Internet and Multimedia, economics can become very interesting.

Now, just take a look at some good books from around the world. Can’t we too use them for learning the subject?

For Beginners…
Microeconomics by Michael Parkin – Addison-Wesley www.econ100.com

Economics – A Complete Course by Dan Moynihan and Brian Titley – Oxford Edition

Undergraduate Level…
(Indian editions are available for all the books given below)

Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw – Thomson South-Western

Principles of Economics by Robert Frank & Ben Bernanke – McGraw Hill

Economics by Lipsey and Crystal – Oxford Edition

Also the books Microeconomics and Macroeconomics by the same authors (McGraw Hill)

Principles of economics Karl E. Case and Ray C. Fair – Prentice Hall

Moving ahead let us look us some books on economics for general reading…

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

(This book has being used as a text-book at leading universities like Berkeley and Purdue!!!)

Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

The World is Flat: A brief history of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman

Happy Reading !!!