Economics provides a set of principles that can be used to make better decisions in various aspects of life, not just related to money.
Teaching economics should focus on providing students with the tools to make better decisions in their lives, rather than solely preparing them for a career as professional economists.
Deep dives
The Importance of Applying Economics in Everyday Life
Economics is not just about money; it is about how people make decisions in all aspects of life. Economics provides a set of principles that can be used to make better decisions in various situations, such as whether to take on more debt as a student or when to start saving for retirement. The podcast emphasizes the underappreciated beauty of economics, highlighting its relevance and usefulness in everyday life.
Teaching Useful Economics
The podcast discusses how economics is taught to students and how it should reflect the reality that not all students will become professional economists. Instead, teachers should focus on providing students with the tools to make better decisions in their lives. By emphasizing key principles like opportunity cost, cost-benefit analysis, marginal thinking, and interdependence, students can develop a habit of applying economics to various decisions, from career choices to time allocation.
The Relevance of Economic Principles and the Role of Data
The podcast explores how economic principles are broadly applicable in everyday life, beyond traditional examples like trade and pollution. Concepts like comparative advantage and externalities can be used to make decisions in various contexts, such as household tasks allocation and managing team productivity. The rise of data in the modern world enhances the importance of economic theory in organizing and interpreting the overwhelming amount of information available, enabling a more realistic and useful approach to economics.
We're all actors in the economy, with different habits, dilemmas and choices. And economics is about everyday decisions in our daily lives as much as it is about government policy. As economics professors, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers have honed the ways to show how economics involves everyone. They discuss their method of teaching economics, and the way they show that economic tools can help us all make good decisions.
Co-Host: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far. Editor: Alastair Elphick. A Modulated Media production.