In a recent post, Nick Rowe speculated that the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis made basic macro mistakes in part because he has an undergraduate degree in math.
Yet a person wanting to make a career as an academic economist (or a president of a federal reserve bank) should not choose economics as an undergraduate major. Particularly in Canada.
Canadian universities typically offer up to three degrees in economics: BA, MA and PhD. Students are usually required to have a MA before entering a PhD.
An undergraduate major requires, say, between 13 and 18 half term courses in economics. An MA? Another 8 to 10 courses. PhD programs vary more, but the University of British Columbia's web site tells students to expect to take another 13 courses.
What's wrong with high standards, requiring students to be have a thorough knowledge of economic concepts and methods?
1. It's repetitive and dull.
In the course of an BA/MA/PhD in economics, how many times would a student interested in industrial organization be taught the basic theory of monopoly? Principles, intermediate micro, industrial organization,…. How many times would she be taught basic two-person non-cooperative game theory? The first theorem of welfare economics?
Now there is a theory of education that suggests such repetition is a good thing. Jerome Bruner's spiral curriculum theory says: 'A curriculum as it develops should revisit … basic ideas repeatedly, building upon them until the student has grasped the full formal apparatus that goes with them'.
So Ontario's elementary and high schools now use a spiral curriculum, for example.
I relish the thought of WCI commentators, usually skeptical of fancy Ministry of Education pedagogical initiatives, defending a spiral curriculum approach. To me it sounds unbelievably tedious.
2. The opportunity cost of coursework is high
Let me make two claims about coursework. First, in five years time, 90% of everything except for fundamental concepts (for example, the idea of opportunity cost) and skills and techniques used in everyday life (for example, a wider vocabulary) will be forgotten. Second, anything close to the "frontiers of knowledge" has a 50 percent or better chance of being completely obsolete and irrelevant in ten to 20 years time.
Requiring students to take courses they do not need is simply taking away their time and money. If students forget/don't use material, or if it rapidly becomes obsolete, educators are wasting students time requiring them to learn it.
True, general knowledge and 'learning how to think' are valuable. But history or biology or classics or religion are also valuable in building breadth of knowledge.
'Free to choose' works for students, too.
3. Learning other people's models does not teach you to build your own model. Learning other people's ideas does not make you more creative
At some point an economist, whether as a consultant submitting a proposal or a policy analyst writing a briefing note or as an academic writing a research paper has to come up with his or her own research ideas, his own analysis, her own model.
It's tough. Brutally hard. But more course work doesn't necessarily help. My own experience is that the most effective way of learning how to do something is to dig in and do it. Writing this blog, for example, is teaching me to be a better writer, because I know you can and probably will stop reading the second is gets long winded and dull.
My colleagues might disagree with my analysis of the value of course work in general (and their courses in particular). But many would agree that an undergraduate degree in economics is not necessary to succeed in graduate school.
The University of Western Ontario does not require new MA and PhD students to have any background in economics, and indeed actively recruits students with undergraduate degrees in math and physics. Other departments waffle a bit more about their requirements, for example, University of Toronto's MA program requires that applicants have completed, or must be in the final year of an appropriate four-year bachelor's degree program. But I've been involved in graduate admissions for years and am reasonably confident that there isn't a graduate program in the country that would not admit a student with a strong quantitative background and a good grades in a handful of core theory courses (Econ 1000, intermediate micro and macro, advanced micro and macro).
UWO is pursuing a rational strategy. For there are some ugly facts that many people are aware of but few mention in polite company.
Economics departments are usually located in faculties of arts and, at an undergraduate level, draw primarily from the BA student pool, as well as B Com drop outs.
But science and math programs require significantly higher high school grades than arts programs. For example, at Queen's a potential BSc student requires a "competitive average" of 84%+ in university-level grade 12 English, Advanced Functions, Calculus and Vectors, two of: Biology, Chemistry or Physics, plus one other grade 12 courses. A potential BA student requires a "competitive average" of 80%+ in university level grade 12 English plus their best 5 other courses.
If high school grades, especially grades in math, are a good signal of ability in economics, BSc students will, on average, have higher levels of intrinsic ability in economics than BA students.
Moreover, there is not a super-abundance of job opportunities in the natural sciences. There is a strong market for programs that can translate a degree in math or physics into a good job in government or academia.
So for these two reasons – a desire to attract students with a high level of intrinsic ability, and a desire to access a large potential student pool – it is rational for graduate programs to target people with undergraduate degrees in subjects other than economics.
But where does this leave students who choose economics as an undergraduate major? As graduate programs increasingly recruit people with undergraduate degrees in subjects other than economics, graduate programs will spend more time repeating basic economic concepts. How can a student who has already learned these concepts sustain his or her interest? And when students are evaluated on the basis of their mathematical modeling and problem-solving ability, how can a student with an undergraduate degree in economics compete with a physicist?
I see two solutions.
The first is truth in advertising: honestly advise our most talented undergraduate students to switch to a math major/econ minor. But given the sheer joy that my most talented undergraduates give me, it's hard to take that route – plus a student's aptitude for graduate level economics may not be readily apparent until their undergraduate choices are largely determined.
The second is to accept design separate graduate programs for economics majors, ones that skip the unnecessary repetition of undergraduate economics. But I'm having trouble imagining what that program would look like, or who would take it.
This is getting personal for me right now because I have university-age children. I have tried to convince them (and their friends, and my first cousin once removed, and hundreds of students) to study economics. An undergraduate economics degree is an excellent background for a career in law or policy analysis, and is a sound choice for someone looking for a general arts degree. But neither one of my children is interested in taking a BA. Both are applying for/taking degrees with more restricted enrollment and thus a higher prestige value. As a firm believer that the value of education is in large part the signal it provides of your ability, who am I to argue with their choices?
I'm just hoping one of them will stumble into ECON 1000 with a good prof, fall in love with the subject, and think about it for a graduate degree.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
I TAed for first year Econ last year and I was amazed at how many students who were planning on attending graduate school for other programs had so much difficulty with the material. As a student I found Econ1000 almost too easy at Carleton. Come to think of it I found intermediate Macro and Micro to be too easy (in a relative sense) as well, so that when I got to fourth year Micro theory I felt side-swiped and totally unprepared for the extremely difficult theory and application problems we were forced to deal with. This almost completely dissuaded me from applying to graduate school for Econ.
One complaint I have (if I’m permitted one) was that many of the compulsory courses focused too narrowly on theory. While I understand it to be useful, it can get pretty dreary the third time through. If the concepts really are going to be repeated in the Master’s program, perhaps undergraduate students would benefit more from a focus on real world applications and examples in core courses. The memorization of relevant real world economic history and case studies seems like it is very underrated by the econ department at Carleton.
TJM: For any course: there is a variance of students in terms of how easy/difficult they find the course; and there is a covariance between how easy/difficult they find this course and how easy/difficult they find other courses across the university.
What you say matches my experience. For ECON1000, the variance is higher, and the covariance is lower, than for most courses across the university. Some students find it really easy, others find it really hard. And it doesn’t correlate well with how easy or hard they find other subjects.
Those would be grad students, or prospective grad students, in Public Admin or International Affairs. Yep, they are bright, but some of them find economics hard.
TJM: “One complaint I have (if I’m permitted one) was that many of the compulsory courses focused too narrowly on theory. While I understand it to be useful, it can get pretty dreary the third time through.”
You are the person I wrote this post for.
Don’t write off people who struggle with Econ 1000, though – it’s a particular way of viewing the world, and it comes naturally to some people and not to others. And what’s important in teaching is the marginal product, not the total product – making a difference to someone’s life. Econ 1000 has more potential to change the world view of someone who doesn’t already think like an economist.
“Matthew: Last Winter, I taught Macro (half course) to Carleton’s MA Public Admin students. They had already had a full course of Intro Micro and Macro (Mankiw). I taught them using the intermediate text Blanchard and Kneebone, minus the math, plus a bit more intuition and policy. They get similar micro, plus a lot of more applied stuff. A lot less math and technique than economics majors, but they are grad students, so you can stretch them a bit more on other dimensions. I don’t know about other Universities.”
Nick, if both these intro and intermediate courses are actually required then, in my understanding, that would be on the upper end of economics intensivity for Canadian public admin programs. Also, it is good that you teach it the way you do – less math, more understanding principles – because this is what the vast majority of future policy analysts need. Pretty much anyone in govt doing real applied economic analysis will have a full econ degree (probably a masters), but there are lots of other areas where people aren’t crunching numbers, but need to have an appreciation of economic principles.
Matthew – “Pretty much anyone in govt doing real applied economic analysis will have a full econ degree (probably a masters), but there are lots of other areas where people aren’t crunching numbers,”
real applied economic analysis=crunching numbers?
Frances,
What I mean to say is that most anything in govt involving a heavily quantitative application of economic priciples (i.e. econometrics, input-output analysis, simulations, etc.) tends to be done by people who were trained as economists. There are a lot of people though (easily the vast majority of analysts, in my experience) who more qualitatively or intuitively apply economic reasoning when analyzing/making policy – these people come from a wider variety of backgrounds.
Matthew – interesting. Your perception of what economists do suggests that perhaps even people wanting a career as an economist in government should load up on the math courses. Which is a stronger claim than I’m making – I’m saying a math background is useful for a PhD in economics and a job in academia.
Frances,
Is my perception mistaken? Please explain if you feel it is.
I don’t necessarily think people wanting a career in govt as an economist should load up on the math courses as per Mike Moffatt’s experience – but comfort with econometrics, which can cause a certain amount of trauma among the less mathematically inclined (it did for me) is recommended.
Excellent question, Frances: that real applied economic analysis=crunching numbers? I’d put ‘ideal economic theory crunching numbers’ to balance the right side though.
First, let me apologize for misspelling your name occasionally. I’m literally blind, have a blind spot with detail – and lack the sort of clear thinking that will eliminate them. Anyway, with that question not sure how many flies I can swat with my left hand while simultaneously grasping them with the right one. However, I will gently push aside the flies and problematic view (and growling experience) I have about the applied economics of cost/benefit analysis equated with welfare economic number crunching.
Your question is excellent as it points to an absolute extreme with co-consciousness. Appears evolution about mind and matter is co-conscious evolution or co-evolution. And, the two are very well meshed, and complement better in women than in men, I believe.
Nonetheless, at the extreme lets not just put the number crunchers also include that “mighty thinker” (as Marx called him and Hegel was) and his theory of absolute idealism. This means Marx’s theory of absolute materialism is there too (but he’s not a problem being contained now, but not in the trash can as you people probably believe). I see Hegel’s three-fold march about the world to be really dangerous now, and could destroy humanity if not contained. While not quite correct, its in the ballpark to say that Hegel is to capitalism and idealism as Marx is to communism and materialism is apt.
Another way of looking at this is that Heraclitus and Hegel (‘the rational is real and the real is rational’) are close to correct and absolutely wrong. They believed the way up and the way down are one and the same. It appears the way up into theory and way down into application is only alike and never the same.
Anyway, this is a reason I believe the best math for undergraduates is to work with mindfulness (like wow, to get big, bigger and best positive pictures) centering on One. Developing rules by thumb is doubly handy to say the least and in application everyone will be in the ballpark of understanding. Then bring in sophisticated 0-centered maths in graduate school. These guys will be the best at hitting home runs. Almost nothing better for me than to die watching you guys playing ball and hitting home runs.
Gotta go. Know the look. Wan wants me to be mindful about baking bread.
Hope there are some accented moments, wows for you people, in this post.
Nick and Frances:
Thanks very much for your responses, I enjoy this blog immensely.
Matthew – “Is my perception mistaken? Please explain if you feel it is.” It sounds as if you have better information than I do. I’m going to re-evaluate the advice that I give econ MA students interviewing for Finance.
Frances,
Just to be clear, I don’t mean to say that all govt economists do math intensive economic analysis, but rather that pretty much all of this type of analysis happens to be done by economists. There are quite a few govt economists who don’t really do this sort of work and just use StatsCan data to tell economic stories. In fact, I have seen people with very minimal formal economics training do this well enough. However, the people who are capable of some of the more math intensive modes of applied analysis are an especially valuable commodity because they are relatively few, so if students have the ability, its probably not a bad idea to point them in that direction. I have no first-hand experience of the federal dept. of finance, but I’d be surprised if it is any less mathematically demanding than the provincial agency I work for.
Funny, my first year econ prof at Carleton never mentioned this (I don’t think he’s there anymore), nor any of my other econ profs.
My first year law prof, however, did. He told us that if we wanted to go to law school (which I didn’t), we shouldn’t take any undergrad law courses. My understanding was that the law schools thought all undergrad programs did was fill students’ heads with bunk, and they didn’t want to waste time un-teaching it all.
I’ll second Matthew and also add thanks to Mike and Stephen. But, does anyone have a theory why these four economic professors are so good?
Well, my theory is this: they are, what I call, a “complete team” (comprise a very good four-folded whole). And, the “good” has multiple truth: good team, good people, good professionals, as well as good, well-suited, for my elemental root metaphor. Whenever I make up teams to venture into, infiltrate, opposition lines (not “enemy lines” as I’ve none, not even fascists: i.e. corrupt police and bully boys) to gain new knowledge, capture the flag at the centre, stake a claim or head off into the wilderness (the English psychologists nicknamed me Wilderness Man) a complete team is four-folded and an efficient team (adding 3 specialists in any of the four subfields as necessary) is never more than 7 to accomplish any given task. And, while I no longer have a classroom, the group dynamics of 7 was found to be best for the Sphairos in the middle shaping a field and actualizing the selves within it – the wows, self-actualized, hopefully, into peak experiences.
Yup, I’m a shape-shifter. Welcome to Wonderland! I look a lot like Humpty Dumpty, but different in some ways (like if I fall, bounce back; don’t break. So I guess I’m a hard-boiled egghead without a shell who looks like a nut 🙂 – and Frances appears like playful Alice looking through the looking glass wondering and questioning. Take yesterday, her question about the “real applied economic analysis=crunching numbers?” Notice, I first balanced the overall shape of the question. In re-visiting it today, mistakes were made (mainly in centring it but can’t be bothered reshaping it) in the answer and one huge fly got away. Another “ideal theory” to swat dead and grasp alive simultaneously would include the Positivists: however, they are now contained too and no longer bent by absolutes, i believe.
Further, two key images mirrored involve the two natural symmetries: bilateral and radial. it’s as if the former is to the left higher hemisphere and moves, evolves, a right-handed consciousness to overcome Strife and provide security like constructing a house, for instance. With the left hand, radial symmetry involves Love, empathy to create the home. Specifically, I’d bet Frances’ class would feel like a home for the students: become like family/friends (wow, she bakes cookies!). Part of the work would be play, having some fun and wonder a lot. And, there is no better teacher than one who gets students to think and work hard, get the job well done, in part by utilizing play and instilling the love of learning.
An addition to Stephen Gordon’s note on failing to train students to write, I did a civil engineering and linguistics double degree in undergrad and neither of those programs provided much in the area of improving writing. I learned most about writing in elective courses, but most students do not choose courses where writing is a requirement.
Sadly, as a TA, I have found that the quality of writing produced by 3rd year engineering students is generally poor, and like many other science and arts programs there is no sense of how important communication is regardless of the field. Those who know how to write seem to end up in those public policy and international relations programs.
Let me start here with a little proof for the team I believe would be well suited for a venture on Pangaia (like Middle Earth except no humans there; homanity comprises the fourth in my wonderland in Middle Heaven) or take on any undergraduate task coursing any discipline. I simply suit them with my root elemental metaphor. Stephen appears sensible, well grounded, good for mining information and arranging supplies. Mike, the homan on the team, appears as the planner, arranging finances for the venture, making sure all our documents (legal & illegal) are in perfect order. Frances (not sure if she’d make a good thief if need be) for sure would start a list of how to keep the rest of the team, especially those male egos, in check and sober. She’d attend to some comforts for the venture and would certainly bake some cookies! Nick is the group leader; the Elf on the team: the pathfinder with the ability to go up in the air and come down to ground with positive ‘focal points’ to keep the team on tract as they wander the wilderness. He’d be key for finding the negating ‘focal point’ too in the opposition’s square once the Trojan horse has penetrated opposition lines. Me, well I’m normally invisible but will become visible as a Trojan horse to get them through the gate. During the trip I can shift-shape into any living form really using ‘rubber sheet geometry’; however my favorites are Raven the Trickster during the day and the Owl of Minerva at night.
So that’s my theory and a simple proof of why I believe the four at WCI make a complete team, not perfect but a good team, rough and soon ready – if they ever choose to venture and take on tasks in the wonderful world of Pangaia.
Patrick hit the mark with this comment: “I can’t think of another field where having a undergraduate degree in the field puts students at a disadvantage relative to students coming from some other field of study.”
I teach econometrics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. When I look at econometrics textbooks designed for undergraduates, it is immediately clear that students who are exposed to such texts (and only such texts) will not even be remotely prepared for graduate-level econometrics courses. My approach has been to prepare my own set of lecture notes which (I hope) will provide the right background. Does this risk alienating the weaker students? Absolutely. But I’m sure advanced undergraduate physics/psychology/philosophy courses also risk alienating students who wouldn’t be able to handle graduate work in those fields. Can the type of students who don’t have a chance in hell of succeeding in an economics graduate program benefit from undergraduate courses in economics? Absolutely – just like how students who wouldn’t succeed in a graduate program in physics/psychology/philosophy can benefit from undergraduate courses in those fields.