Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What do young people learn who study economics? And what do they not learn? In what ways do they learn to see the world, what do they learn in terms of theory and how much do they learn about the real economy? Are they being trained with a single set of right answers, or do they learn to look at the world in a critical way?

Since economists play such a central role in our society, it is vital that we educate them well. This has caused a lot of debate in recent years, about the quality and content of our economics teaching.

Unfortunately, that debate is often based on anecdotes and personal experiences, rather than a broadly shared basis of facts. This causes a lot of miscommunication. By creating reliable data on the content and teaching methods of economics programs, we hope to bring this debate to a higher level. And by providing an overview of new teaching, reading and other materials, we hope to give both students and academics more tools to expand their ideas about economics.

There's no such thing as 100% scientific reliability. But as far as we know the reports gathered on this website are the most rigorous and detailed attempts to map the content of economics programs so far. Each of the reports contains a detailed methodology section.

Course guides do not form a perfect description of what happens in courses. On the one hand, this could mean that some results are biased downwards, when the course includes features that are not reflected in the course outline. Although this is certainly the case for some courses, from our personal experiences as economics students we think that the opposite, an overestimation, occurs at least as frequently.

The website is owned and built by the Centre for Economy Studies, which is hosted by the Dutch foundation Our New Economy.

We do our best, and welcome feedback. You can contact us at economy[dot]studies[at]ourneweconomy[dot]nl

We think our society needs better economic thinking. Collectively, we are faced with huge challenges such as climate change, an instable financial system, and social polarization. In many of these, the economy plays a central role. So we need to get better perspectives on it, to grasp it. We hope that overviews of what is taught in economics programs can help us on this road.

No. As George Box famously noted, "All models are wrong, but some are useful". The point of a theory is not to exactly mimic the world, but to model certain fundamental aspects of it in a simplified and understandable way. This means that theories filter many things out, in order to see one or two things very clearly. Hence, to understand something as complex as our economic system, you will need several theories, to see several dimensions of it very clearly. Think of the 3D-glasses which you used to get in the cinema. One side filters only blue light, the other eye filters only red light. Together, they form a 3D picture.

For those who know the debate surrounding "heterodox" (meaning non-orthodox, non-mainstream) theories: the boundary between heterodox and orthodox has been drawn and re-drawn many times, and we do not intend to contribute to that debate. Every economic approach, including the current orthodoxy is regularly denounced as "unscientific". We prefer to ask: does this approach provide insight in how certain aspects of the economy work? If that is the case, we want to hear it. Whether it's intellectually related to Smith (classical political economy), Marx (radical economics), Hayek (Austrian school), Veblen (original institutional economics), Schumpeter (evolutionary economics), Keynes (Post-Keynesian economics) or Friedman (neoclassical economics).

The various reports on this website each give slightly different, but broadly similar definitions. See the methodology section of the relevant report to determine what those authors mean by the term.

A common definition of neoclassical economics is characterized by methodological individualism, instrumentalism, and equilibration.

No. But there is a link between the two. The Chicago school of economics is an important branch of both neoliberalism and neoclassical economics. There are however also neoclassical economists who are against neoliberalism, such as neo-Keynesian economists. And there are also neoliberals, such as Austrian economists, who don't view the world in a neoclassical manner.

Indeed. First of all, we do not believe that there is a single template for the ideal curriculum. Our societies are too large and complex for that: we need a range of specialists. Second, these specialists do need a shared foundation. On this website, we provide a range of ideas about what such a curriculum could look like, as well as a range of materials to teach all this, available through various platforms.

Academic approaches are just like glasses. Every glasses has its strength and focus. Every approach places a particular emphasis on one aspect of the economy and try to always make this clear. Neoclassical economics, for example, focuses on market mechanisms. This is very useful, but when you would like to understand how markets are embedded within society, original institutional economics might for example be of more help. A broad understanding of the economy with its different aspects, is thus only possible when multiple approaches are combined.

Questions and debate about how to study economics are as old as the discipline itself. Veblen, for example, famously critized the current state of the discipline more than 100 years ago (http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=ger). But as neoclassical economics became more dominant, the protest against it began to grow as well. For an extensive history of this protest, see A History of Heterodox Economics by Frederic Lee. Since the 1990s and especially the financial crisis of 2008, the movement grew further. That is also when the name Rethinking Economics came to prominence.

No. The New Economics Education Network and Rethinking Economics do not support any political programs and positions. In other words, it does not promote one vision for how the economy should be organized. The movement does however acknowledge that pure objectivity and neutrality, stripped of any normative aspects, is not possible with economic ideas, and especially policy advice. This makes pluralism all the more important. Because when only one theoretical approach is taken seriously, the idea of one-size-fits-all becomes prevalent. Only when students are taught different approaches, they will be able to critically assess which one is most relevant for the specific problem they are dealing with.

We organise events, do research, development teaching materials, campaign, debate, write articles and do many more things.

If you are interested find the platform or network that fits your needs here (https://economicseducation.org/resources-for-change/).