Macroeconomics and Descrimination in Teaching

Elias Tuma
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Elias Tuma: Department of Economics, University of California Davis

No 217, Working Papers from University of California, Davis, Department of Economics

Abstract: There are biases in the teaching of macroeconomics. These biases reflect economic discrimination which varies in kind and impact on policy making and welfare of the people. Traditional economic concepts and tools of analysis are capable of identifying the different kinds of economic discrimination and assessing their impact on the economy. These concepts and tools are also adequate in teaching macroeconomics without bias and without compromising traditional objectives of economic education. The existence of economic discrimination has been widely recognized, but the teaching of macroeconomics has been too slow to reflect that reality.1 There have been a few attempts to identify the bias in economic education and restructure the introductory course to remove the bias. However, economic textbooks continue to focus on the economics of homogeneous labor, economic rationality, and perfect competition which tend to ignore race and gender biases in economic policy and implementation. Models and theories of perfect competition can establish standards for explanation of economic behavior, but they do not explain economic discrimination nor justify the bias in economic education. Similarly, failing to emphasize the distinction between theoretical models and applied behavior can result in distorted perspectives of the economy, misleading economic

Pages: 11
Date: 2004-07-11
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