'Refocusing Economics Education'

Antonio Fatás (each of the four points below are explained in detail in the original post):

Refocusing economics education: Via Mark Thoma I read an interesting article about how the mainstream economics curriculum needs to be revamped (Wren-Lewis also has some nice thoughts on this issue).

I am sympathetic to some of the arguments made in those posts and the need for some serious rethinking of the way economics is taught but I would put the emphasis on slightly different arguments. First, I  am not sure the recent global crisis should be the main reason to change the economics curriculum. Yes, economists failed to predict many aspects of the crisis but my view is that it was not because of the lack of tools or understanding. We have enough models in economics that explain most of the phenomena that caused and propagated the global financial crisis. There are plenty of models where individuals are not rational, where financial markets are driven by bubbles, with multiple equilbria,... that one can use to understand the last decade. We do have all these tools but as economics teachers (and researchers) we need to choose which ones to focus on. And here is where we failed. And we did it before and during the crisis but we also did it earlier. Why aren't we focusing on the right models or methodology? Here is my list of mistakes we do in our teaching, which might also reflect on our research:

#1 Too much theory, not enough emphasis on explaining empirical phenomena. ...

#2 Too many counterintuitive results. Economists like to teach things that are surprising. ...

#3 The need for a unified theory. ...

#4 We teach what our audience wants to hear. ...

I also believe the sociology within the profession needs to change.