Transformative economics education : using proverbs from around the world in the classroom

This paper discusses an approach to economics education based on transformative learning theory and Roger’s humanistic approach. The aim is to make the study of Economics more related to the students’ lives, enhancing their motivation to engage with Economics material. The author proposes the use of proverbs from around the world as a way of challenging students' meaning perspectives, and describe my experience of using this approach in the classroom

The positive effect of entry of rivals on incumbents' profits: The see-saw effect.

The thesis is a theoretical study of different mechanisms by which an increase in the number of rival firms leads to an increase in profits of an incumbent. Consequently, an incumbent may find it profitable to invite rivals, as is sometimes observed, for example in the semiconductor industry. Chapter 2: We expand the work by Farrell and Gallini (1988), in which a monopoly invites rivals to commit in period1 to low prices in period 2. Instead of assuming Bertrand competition as Farrell and Gallini do, we assume Cournot competition, and find the optimal number of rivals from an incumbent's point of view. Furthermore, the incumbent may invite rivals to enter already in period 1 so as to 'share' any losses incurred in the first period of production. Chapter 3: We propose a new mechanism by which an incumbent firm may want to invite rivals, based on the existence of capacity constraints, which we model as decreasing returns to scale. An incumbent may attract rivals in period 2 to increase consumer surplus in the same period above the level which it finds cost-effective to achieve on its own, enabling consumers to tolerate a higher price in period 1. Chapter 4: A multinational which trains workers may enjoy higher profits when more of its workers are poached by rival firms if it is compensated by a sufficiently lower wage during training. More workers are poached when there are more non-training firms and when training is more general. The result depends on the assumption of decreasing returns to scale, so that an increase in the number of poaching firms, or training that is more general, expands worker surplus beyond the level that the multinational could achieve on its own. The multinational can then pay trainees a lower wage

Contemporary art in higher education: creative pedagogies in political economy

We propose that contemporary art, which reflects the problems and attitudes of our times, can be used as a way of promoting creativity in disciplines that are not traditionally associated with the arts. Whilst contemporary art is being used as a learning and teaching aid in higher education in a small number of disciplines, it is not normally used in disciplines dominated by rational discourse; an example is economics, on which we focus. We begin by reviewing the literature on art, education and creativity. We then perform an activity with students taking political economy. Students are given the task of selecting a work of contemporary art which “speaks” to them about political economy, followed by an assessed, in-class presentation on the connection between the piece of art and the subject of political economy. We run a focus group to assess the effectiveness of the activity in terms of encouraging the students to exercise and develop their creativity. We find that it is particularly effective at enabling them to establish innovative connections and associations, increasing their interest in learning and developing a personally relevant body of knowledge. Furthermore, taking into consideration contemporary art’s ability to highlight the problems of our times and to react to them, we consider whether the works presented by the students display these problems and are capable of offering solutions, or elements of solutions, to them, and find that they are indeed capable of doing so

Helping students select a dissertation topic : a motivation-based approach

It is not unusual for students to struggle to find a dissertation topic. To address this problem, I designed an exercise that helps students to better connect with their motivations, or the inner drives they have, for wanting to choose one topic or another. The results of student feedback suggest that the exercise is helpful in enabling students to be more aware of their motivations and to have a stronger sense of personal connection - and so be more satisfied - with the topic of their choice. Working in Research Methods module for students taking the MA in International Business and other similar Master’s degrees, this paper describes the methodology, results and conclusions that were drawn to address this problem

Teaching and Learning Economics through Cinema

In July 2006 the author and a small team of colleagues received funding from the Economics Network of the Higher Education Authority to enable the development of a new module which aims to teach economics through the arts, in particular through the use of cinema and literature ... The idea of teaching economics with cinema is not new, and is practiced in a number of educational institutions in the United States. The approach used in that country is, however, quite different from the one proposed here and used in the pilot study. In the United State, modules are usually run in the students’ first year presenting a variety of fundamental economic concepts such as opportunity cost, scarcity, aymmetric information and illustrating them using films (see, for example, Leet and Houser (2003)). The approach developed here is, in a sense, the reverse of that process since it is the medium of cinema which is allowed to inform and suggest the economic concepts that can be discussed through this medium. As a consequence, the range of topics covered is much wider and the approach also allows coverage of unconventional topics such as the economics of charities, dowries and the economics of crime

Post Secular Reflections on the Value of the Stakeholder Approach in Business

The business strategy literature considers two types of corporate objectives or, as companies like to call them, ‘missions’, namely the shareholder and stakeholder approaches. According to the shareholder approach, companies exist to maximize the return for shareholders, and all other stakeholders (workers, managers, customers, suppliers, etc.) are instrumental in achieving this purpose. On the other hand, according to the stakeholder approach (in its more communitarian form), companies exist to benefit all stakeholders (including the shareholders, though, unlike for the shareholder approach, these are not given priority over other stakeholders)

Incorporating research findings in the economics syllabus: evidence on genuine sociality from Italy and the UK

Economics education is proving slow in incorporating into the syllabus the genuine advances made in economics research in the last few decades. As economics education relies primarily on the single approach of neoclassical economics, whilst recent advances in research have been marked by a wide variety of approaches, many of which are interdisciplinary, the methodological divide between education and research is growing wider. We attempt to measure how keen students are to incorporate research findings in the syllabus by developing a questionnaire which introduces undergraduate students in Italy and the U.K. to key findings in the research literature on genuine sociality, an area in which the methodological divide is very noticeable. Students display moderate support for being taught the material on genuine sociality. Students who wish to incorporate genuine sociality in the syllabus tend to be older, value virtue and have a religion

Incorporating research findings in the economics syllabus: evidence on genuine sociality from Italy and the UK

Economics education is proving slow in incorporating into the syllabus the genuine advances made in economics research in the last few decades. As economics education relies primarily on the single approach of neoclassical economics, whilst recent advances in research have been marked by a wide variety of approaches, many of which are interdisciplinary, the methodological divide between education and research is growing wider. We attempt to measure how keen students are to incorporate research findings in the syllabus by developing a questionnaire which introduces undergraduate students in Italy and the U.K. to key findings in the research literature on genuine sociality, an area in which the methodological divide is very noticeable. Students display moderate support for being taught the material on genuine sociality. Students who wish to incorporate genuine sociality in the syllabus tend to be older, value virtue and have a religion