By Gabriel Martinez, Jun 25, 2009 in Pedagogy and Teaching
If economic logic focuses on teaching students to construct and evaluate truth and falsity in economic argumentation, while economic grammar focuses on vocabulary and identification, the Statistics course belongs in the grammar stage (what is a standard deviation? can you write down the regression equation from the statistical output?), and Econometrics belongs to the logic stage.
Students should have learned the basic use of linear regression in Statistics: in Econometrics they should also learn why classical linear regression works, and under which conditions: it minimizes the sum of squared errors, that these conditions are often violated and that we have tools to deal with those violations. Many econometrics courses expect students to be able to evaluate an empirical paper critically, to be proficient in a statistical computer package, and to implement original research using the empirical techniques learned, often by replicating what others have done. Constant application of econometric tools helps students to understand and to stay awake (it also gives students a marketable set of skills). More importantly, the applied approach of the typical undergraduate econometrics course (and of the “field” courses that make heavy use of econometrics) emphasizes that economists largely seek to find the truth about relations between variables by constructing a logical argument based on facts.
Some electives expand the Intermediate coverage on a subfield by emphasizing a particular set of models, which are largely the application of the economic method to that area of study. Industrial Organization or Business Cycle courses might good examples of the logic stage. Often these courses ask the student to move beyond textbook economic analyses to reading the professional economics literature and develop the skills necessary to understand, analyze, and talk about the professional economics literature, both theoretical and empirical. Thus, very often, econometrics is part of the course so as to allow the student to understand the regression analyses that are part of the reading material.
Courses like Game Theory or Economic Development introduce large quantities of new terminology or facts—but by then, one hopes, students have learned to learn economics quickly and the course can emphasize new models or new applications. History of Economic Thought (the study of thinkers and their ideas) is perhaps best taught at the logic stage, teaching students to distinguish between arguments rather than simply listing famous defunct economists. Where does Economic History (the study of economic events in time) belong? Many undergraduate economic history courses emphasize the application of economic tools rather than the enumeration of facts. Whether this is appropriate – that is, whether economic history belongs in the grammar or the logic stage – is an open question.
1 Response to "The Teaching of Economic Logic, Part 2"
Brian Domitrovic on Jul 1, 2009
I’ve been following with great interest these posts on economics, the liberal arts, and history. Let me offer a thought on the paradoxes of history and economics.
Often with regard to the history of economics we make the scientistic mistake – that is, whatever refined theory exists now must include most if not all that was correct in theory in the past. Socrates of course would scoff at this, and it is to the credit of latter-day mathematicians that they largely do too.
The thing I notice in the history of economics is how good ideas can be overwhelmed by events and inappropriately seen as left on the “ash-heap” of history. Here’s an example. David Hume went on in the 18th century on the inadvisability of trade protection and net exporters’ hoarding of gold. Yet the US defied him out of the gate, setting up an “infant industry” tariff and codifying the whole thing for good after 1815 with the American System.
Hume must have been wrong – right? – because boy, did the US prosper after all that. But wait, only the North prospered, and the South badly lacked for capital goods. The North was no good at making that stuff, but Britain was. Calhoun and others marveled at a tariff that kept economic usefuls out of places like South Carolina. In time, North and South were at war, because the North didn’t like the South’s form of economic organization.
Now who on earth would blame the civil war on the failure to follow David Hume’s advice? No one. Hume was left on the ash-heap. But the case is compelling. It was made all the more compelling in the 1860s, as new, naïve entrants to the world economy – Japan and Germany – decided to enter the game without infant-industry protections. Immediately it was ascertained that Britain’s capital stock was both aged and obsolete. Germany and Japan blew by the Brits, as surely the whole US could have done after 1815 had it had second thoughts about the American System – with no civil war in the offing.
Some of this is counter-factual, for sure, but in order to avoid the scientistic temptation we have to keep an open mind about counter-factuals. Conservatives especially should be aware of roads not taken in the past, and dubious of any “ratifications” by history.