What do we teach in Macroeconomics? Evidence of a theoretical discrepancy

François Courtoy (), Michel De Vroey () and Riccardo Turati
Additional contact information
François Courtoy: IRES/LIDAM, UC Louvain, Belgium
Michel De Vroey: IRES/LIDAM, UC Louvain, Belgium

Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona

Abstract: The aim of our paper is to assess what we call the ‘discrepancy hypothesis’. It states that the transformation of macroeconomics triggered by Lucas, Kydland and Prescott has failed to percolate in the contents of undergraduate textbooks. In the theoretical part of the paper, we draw a contrast between AS-AD and DGE modeling based on three benchmarks: the presence of microfoundations, the expectations assumption and the equilibrium concept used. In its empirical part, we measure how undergraduate textbooks fare with respect to AS-AD/DGE divide. We use two sources, the WorldCat database, and a survey of the undergraduate textbooks used for teaching in leading universities. The discrepancy hypothesis is confirmed. Thirty-four out of the thirty-nine textbooks retained from the WorldCat catalogue are based on the AS-AD, and three on the DGE core model. Eleven out of twelve most used undergraduate textbooks of the teaching sample adopt the AS-AD line.

Keywords: macroeconomics; textbooks; IS-LM/AS-AD; DGE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2025-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ddd.uab.cat/repec/doc/wpdea2508.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: What do we teach in Macroeconomics? Evidence of a theoretical discrepancy (2025)
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:uab:wprdea:wpdea2508

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dept. Economia Aplicada ().