I’m putting together a major conference early next year on the education of economists, prompted by a number of conversations with employers of economics graduates but also, notably, academics who teach economics. (UK-based employers and academics can e-mail me for more info.)

There is a general dissatisfaction, to varying degrees, with the undergraduate curriculum. This is most notable in macroeconomics, not surprisingly. The Great Moderation consensus in macro has fractured and the debate now is at least as polemical as when Keynesians and Monetarists slugged it out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yet undergraduates are still taught one workhorse model and DSGE. Almost nobody thinks this is satisfactory. Turning to microeconomics, here graduates are far better prepared for the kind of jobs non-academic economists do, and the subject is having a rich and successful period. Yet even here, academics know that what they are teaching is far narrower than the kinds of research they themselves are doing, and employers would like to have new graduates who are better able to step out of the narrow confines of specific models when faced with real world data, institutions and politics (small ‘p’).

The essence of the problem is that schools are now producing a much greater number of students with A level economics, engaged and eager to understand the extraordinary events in the world around them, and all the enthusiasm gets beaten out of them in their first term. John Sutton put it well in his book Marshall’s Tendencies. He says that new students all ask whether models over-simplify and whether people really maximise. He continues: “By the time that students have advanced a couple of years into their studies, both these questions are forgotten. Those students who remain troubled by them have quit the field; those who remain are socialized and no longer as about such things. Yet these are deep questions which cut to the very heart of the subject.” (p.xv)

Changing the content of the undergraduate curriculum is not easy, however. It involves shifting away from one focal point to another and therefore requires co-ordination. Hence the conference. It would also ideally be international, especially taking in the US universities. We have no budget for that but I’m planning to invite overseas economists to contribute to a pre-conference set of papers – ideas for contributors very welcome!

Meanwhile, here are some questions for this blog’s readers. Should undergraduates always be taught some economic history? History of economic thought? Methodology? Behavioural approaches? How would you produce economics graduates with adequate technical skills but a broader education in their subject than they have at present?

And of course, what books should they read? Interestingly, the history of thought is well-served. There is Robert Heilbroner’s classic [amazon_link id=”0140290060″ target=”_blank” ]The Worldly Philosophers[/amazon_link] (1953; 7th ed 1999). And a new text has just reached me, Agnar Sandmo’s Economics Evolving . It looks less accessible than the Heilbroner, which is a series of biographical sketches, but far more thorough. I’ll review it here in due course.

[amazon_image id=”0691148422″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Economics Evolving[/amazon_image]