Why Teach History of Economic Thought Today?

Andrés Álvarez and Jimena Hurtado Prieto

No 7712, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: Shorter undergraduate studies, increasing specialization and the priority of applied research in Economics represent threats for the History of Economic Thought (HET) as an integral part of the training of young economists. There are mostly sociological arguments to reduce or eliminate HET courses and contents to which we try to respond in this text. We advance that HET allows developing valuable skills that might help overcome the criticisms against Economics due to its alleged incapacity to offer solutions in times of crisis and to its fascination with quantification and technique. In this context, HET appears as a space for thought, self-criticism and introspection in which new economists may understand that Economics is a process and not a product giving them the abilities necessary to participate in the extended present of their discipline.

Keywords: history of economic thought; teaching in economics; economic theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 A13 A14 A22 B2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2010-09-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/8206/dcede2010-28.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:007712

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Universidad De Los Andes-Cede ().