What to teach, when teaching economics as a minor subject?

Martin Kniepert

No DP-63-2016, Discussion Papers from University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute for Sustainable Economic Development

Abstract: Over the last few years, demands from student organisations for pluralism in teaching economics gave quite a stir to neoclassical economics; at least in the media, and at some selected universities. On the other hand, university teachers show considerable inertia. Sometimes they are pointing out that economic theory was not as streamlined as asserted. But mostly they insist on mainstream teaching as a basic prerequisite, possibly to be complemented later by some elective courses. While a dispute about the adequacy of this will certainly continue, it has to be stated that the typical syllabus for economics as a minor subject leaves the respective students with a very narrow notion of economics. This paper elaborates on this aspect. It outlines specific restrictions and requirements an economics-minor syllabus has to comply with in order to have a realistic chance for a wider dissemination at universities. Taking account of this, it is shown that pluralist intentions are covered to a considerable extent by the broader perspective of (new) institutional economics as developed by North, Williamson, Ostrom, and others. At the same time it allows for a coherent and commonly shared body of economic knowledge. To circumstantiate this, this paper resorts to important steps in the history of economic thinking, to its epistemological foundations, as well as to rather practical needs of mutual recognition of exams.

Keywords: Institutional Economics; economics-minor syllabus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 B0 B5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/235189/1/dp63-2016.pdf (application/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:zbw:inwedp:dp632016

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute for Sustainable Economic Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().