An update on the process of reforming the undergraduate economics curriculum.

The story so far is that in February 2012 a conference on the subject of whether the curriculum at this level is appropriate in the light of the financial crisis, and of employers’ skill needs, was hosted by the Bank of England and Government Economic Service. The pre-and post-conference papers are collected in [amazon_link id=”1907994041″ target=”_blank” ]What’s The Use of Economics: Teaching the Dismal Science After the Crisis.[/amazon_link]

[amazon_image id=”1907994041″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]What’s the Use of Economics?: Teaching the Dismal Science After the Crisis[/amazon_image]

A working group of academics and employers picked up the reins in a working group which drew up the statement published in the latest Royal Economic Society newsletter. There was real consensus about this, and some of the working group’s members are taking forward the conclusions in a discussion about subject benchmarks with the Quality Assurance Agency, which reviews the performance of higher education institutions.

In parallel, Wendy Carlin of UCL is starting work on developing a new curriculum and supporting teaching materials, to be freely available. The first stage of her work is being supported by INET. Her aim is to have a curriculum to pilot from the autumn of 2014.

This is progress beyond our wildest dreams when I first started to contact people about the conference 18 months ago. I think the profession is really quite divided: there are many economists who don’t believe there’s all that much that needs to change. But it’s obvious that enough do now feel the need for intellectual reform that a real shift is under way.