Last night I took part in a panel discussion on Who Owns the Story of the Future at the British Library linked to its new exhibition about science fiction, Out of This World (there are more talks in the series too). The other panellists were eminent SF writers Cory Doctorow and William Gibson and technology writer Mark Stevenson. The podcast will be available on the BL site, and there are loads of tweets under #outofthisworld or #ootw. Meanwhile, notes on a couple of the themes that emerged in the hugely stimulating discussion with the audience.

One was about the absence of a dominant narrative about the future at present, in contrast to past eras of techno-optimism, such as the Victorian heyday of the Industrial Revolution or the late 1950s and 60s space-inspired visions. One audience member raised the interesting question of whether this reflects the absence of a dominant global power – perhaps in future there will be another shared story, but one written in Mandarin?

I argued that a sense of progress is vital for a society to make long-term investments and to exercise proper stewardship for future generations (themes of The Economics of Enough). In economics, we model this as the central role of expectations in determining current behaviour. Cory Doctorow objected to the notion of progress, however, describing it as ideological, while William Gibson said belief in progress had been fatally undermined by the realisation that the internal combustion engine, a dominant technology shaping our times, had made possible the next mass extinction of human life on Earth. Mark Stevenson, on the other hand, supported my contention that there are many ways in which genuine progress can be documented, and that the wave of new technologies will bring about more. It was interesting to see the split here between the fiction writers and the non-fiction ones – and a change for me not to be the gloomy economist.

It was a fascinating debate – look out for the podcast. And a treat for me to engage with people who are not economists. I must get out more often! The exhibition is absorbing as well. One of the most powerful exhibits is a copy of the UK Government's notorious 'Protect and Survive' leaflet – I was amazed to read that the plan was to distribute it in 1980, much more recently than I remembered.

In Bristol last week for my session in the Festival of Ideas, I met up with Wayne Geerling of La Trobe University in Melbourne. I met Wayne (pictured in Bristol's Watershed below) in December at an Erasmus University conference on Economics Made Fun, and was enthused by his passion for teaching economics in accessible ways. Since then he reviewed for me in the latest issue of The Business Economist a new book, The Heart of Teaching Economics, by Simon Bowmaker – the review is not yet online, but Wayne's take was that it had great insights for conventional teaching of the brightest students, but didn't address the use of innovative methods for less academically-inclined students. He's currently working with the Economics Network, sharing his approach using multi-media resources – building on their film-making project, for example.

Our discussion touched on another avenue I've been pursuing lately, namely the shocking way the economics curriculum lags behind the kind of exciting economics the academics are now engaged in (all the areas described in my previous book, The Soulful Science, and more recent developments such as the spread of experimental methods as brilliantly described in Poor Economics, for example). Undergraduate courses have not changed, are still taught to dull textbooks, and all the excitement of the subject is beaten out of students early. This makes it all the more surprising that funding for the Economics Network is being axed completely, and replacement funding currently seems uncertain. There are some rays of hope – one is the number of eminent economists signing up for Speakers for Schools, due to launch in October – but I hope to convene a major UK discussion on teaching economics, and will post more when I know more.

Anyway, I mentioned to Wayne that I'd volunteered to teach a lesson at my son's comprehensive school, to the first year sixth formers studying economics, and asked his advice. This was generously forthcoming, and he argued furthermore that economists who teach are more than eager to share the materials they use, whereas economists who research are much cagier. On reflection, it seemed likely this is true, because there is an innate non-rivalry in teaching: it's a person-to-student relationship, and even if a teacher hands over all their notes and materials that does not affect their own teaching output at all. In research, on the other hand, there is an innate rivalry which is amplified by the professional structures in universities.

The two need to march hand in hand, of course. This is a fruitful and exciting time for economics, with methodological improvements and a stimulating professional debate in many areas of research – and at the same time an upsurge in student numbers as enthusiastic young people seek to learn more about these extraordinary times we're living through. It would be a terrible waste of a good crisis for the economics profession to fail to channel that enthusiasm into future advances in knowledge. That will only happen through the conduit of a redrawn curriculum and better teaching. Like anybody who loves ideas, I know how decisive the impact of an inspirational teacher can be.

It has been a treat to read The Dervish House by Ian McDonald, part of my homework for speaking tomorrow at the British Library on a panel with Cory Doctorow, William Gibson and Mark Stevenson, chaired by Jon Turney. The debate, accompanying the new BL exhibition on science fiction, Out of This World, is about 'Who Owns the Story of the Future'. The story of the future is of course massively important in economics, although we label it 'expectations'.

Anyway, the novel has two passages of particular interest to economists. One has a literature professor asking for a third way in economics, between mathematical market models and models based on individual psychology, namely economics as a social sphere: “After all, a market is ultimately a social construct, isn't it?…. I can't help but think that a socially-mediated economy, one that costs in common value, trust and mutual obligation, might be the model for the 21st century.” (p178)

Another has an entrepreneur describe his vision of the late 21st century future: “Authenticity will be big. What won't sell is all this domestic tat and consumer electronics…. Everyone will have a fab, a home fabrication plant….we'll print things from proteins and semizotic plastics. When you're tired of that jacket or want new shoes you'll just let the old ones die. The fab will recycle them. Everything will be designer. When commodities are cheap, people pay for the label….Anything that hasn't been fabbed, that is genuine and has the provenance to show it, will be the thing of value. People will pay for authenticity, people will pay for experience.” (p352-353)

I was particularly excited by this because it was just what I wrote about in my first (1996) book, The Weightless World (downloadable as a pdf from Enlightenment Economics).

Meanwhile, back to my preparation for tomorrow evening's glittering event.

A colleague has asked me to recommend a book that will help her – a very intelligent and numerate person – understand the news about Greece and the Eurozone, whether or not there's a recession, what the effect of public spending cuts will be etc etc. Even though the economics reporters on the whole do a great job of describing the debate about such issues, the language and concepts are hard for non-economists to absorb.

Microeconomists (like me) would perhaps say that part of the problem is the fundamental vacuum at the heart of macroeconomics, but nevertheless there must be some useful guides for the general reader. These don't come across my desk all that often, although Phil Thornton has reviewed some recent examples on this blog – What You Need to Know About Economics and 30 Second Economics – and I looked at Making Sense of the Modern Economy.

Serendipitously, though, yesterday Romesh Vaitilingam gave me a copy of the new, sixth edition of his Financial Times guide, Using the Financial Pages. Running to so many editions is pretty good testimony, and the book looks as crystal clear as I would expect from such a terrific communicator – it goes beyond economics to cover financial jargon and concepts too. So my colleague will have a few things to start her off. But other recommendations are welcome.

There's a new report in the series of research into the social and economic impact of mobiles I've been overseeing since 2004 for Vodafone. This one, Making Broadband Accessible for All, was a joint effort with the World Wide Web Foundation, looking at broadband in the developing world. We launched it yesterday at the LSE's POLIS research centre, and some of the discussion can be found through the Twitter hashtag #VODSIM (and in one case #bodsim!).

Use of mobile broadband is growing even more rapidly in some developing countries than the developed ones (843% in Kenya in the year to September 2010, for example), and is greatly understated by ITU figures that only count 3G subscriptions. The widespread access to mobiles means mobile data services will be key in getting the great majority of people online. Early users are making extensive use of social networks, mainly Facebook, and although it's obviously a global company, Facebook is also becoming a platform for the provision of local content.

The report looks at patterns of internet use by early adopters in Kenya, and at trends in content provision in East Africa. There are also papers looking at business and policy implications. The key messages are:

– in developing countries, near-universal online access will involve a mix of mobile and fibre networks. The policy debate is focused on high-profile big fibre investments but there could be better uses for the government funds involved, and at a minimum policy makers need to ensure there is a good environment for investment in mobile networks.

– governments should provide mobile-enabled services in their e-government offer but should also recognize (along with the aid community) that entertainment and social networking are the uses that will drive take-up to the critical mass at which network effects kick in and ensure the almost universal spread of broadband;

– the availability of spectrum is a key resource for getting everyone online. Many developing country governments, however, either hoard spectrum or see it as a source of government revenues. They should instead think about maximising consumer welfare;

– the regulation of mobile data services needs to enable a return on investment and ensure services are affordable. In mobile voice services this balance has been achieved by ensuring the cost of calls does not all fall on the recipient, essential for mobile to spread in low-income countries. But at present the customer bears all the cost of mobile data services. For both regulators and operators, there is a challenge to develop innovative pricing structures to make mobile broadband access affordable.

It's terrific stuff, and anyone already working in this area will know how dynamic it has already become in a number of countries  – we're aiming to kick off some online debate on it next week.