The Journal for Economic Educators publishes articles of interest to teachers of Economics and Finance from high school through doctoral degree levels. ISSN 2688-5956 (online)
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IMPACTS OF ASYNCHRONOUS DISCUSSION FORUMS ON STUDENT LEARNING: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY
Using asynchronous discussion forums to mimic class discussion and participation has been around for some time but increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the current research on asynchronous discussion forums focuses on best practices for implementation but does not address its effectiveness on student learning. This research focuses on quantifying the impact of asynchronous discussion forums on student learning in an introductory principles of microeconomics course. An observational study using two treatments and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression was used to estimate the models. The results indicate that participation in a discussion forum had little impact on student learning compared to an in-person format. The results show a boost in homework scores for upperclassmen but a negative effect on final grades for freshmen, compared to the control group. The results suggest that asynchronous discussion forums boost grades on collaborative assignments but do not translate into higher scores or improved learning on solo assignments such as exams or essays, nor does it lead to any improvement in final grades.
Copyright (c) 2025 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
ECONOMETRICS AND MACHINE LEARNING IN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS EDUCATION: FACTS AND A GUIDELINE ON TEACHING PRACTICES
Econometrics, and related courses, are often thought of as the most challenging courses for many undergraduate economics, business, and management students. Using a large international dataset of business and economics syllabi, I show an upward trajectory in including machine learning topics within business syllabi, with a discernible shift of emphasis from econometrics topics. With the growing number of undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds, there is a growing need to improve the teaching of econometrics and make it more inclusive and applicable. I discuss and formalize actionable guidelines for practices and interventions that can improve econometrics teaching and make it accessible and relevant to increasingly diverse students in economics, business, and management schools.
OUTSIDE READINGS IN PRINCIPLES OF MACROECONOMICS: TEACHING STUDENTS TO SEE NUANCES
Principles curricula frequently introduce students to complex social choice questions. The literature has emphasized the use of outside readings and real-world examples to improve students’ understanding and economic literacy. This paper focuses on robotization and its macroeconomic consequences as an example of a multifaceted social transformation that is relevant to both the textbook material and current economic events. I present an assignment on this topic based on news articles. The proposed intervention builds on the knowledge students have at the end of a semester-long, undergraduate Principles of Macroeconomics course. The goal of the assignment is to improve students’ ability to reconcile a complex trade-off. Using an experiment, I measure the contribution the assignment makes to students’ learning experience. I show that exposure to the texts changes students’ attitudes and preferences over policy. The paper contributes to the literature on outside readings and economic literacy.
BAM! ZAP! POW!: TEACHING MICROECONOMIC CONCEPTS WITH COMIC BOOK SUPERHEROES
One part of the unwritten superhero code is that heroes should not charge for their services; however, this runs contrary to the entrepreneurial spirit. Some heroes are leaving money on the table by adhering to this code. Other heroes try to get involved in a business, but their superpowers do not include basic economic knowledge. In this paper we examine some fundamental microeconomic issues by examining why comic book superheroes do not earn a higher income. We provide specific references (and links) to comics and movie clips, as well as teaching tips and questions for instructors interested in teaching about markets and business decisions using a creative, non-textbook method.
SWIFTONOMICS: USING TAYLOR SWIFT TO TEACH ECONOMICS
Taylor Swift is the most iconic music artist of her generation; her current Eras Tour is already the highest grossing of all time. Given her fame, fortune, and popularity among Millennials and Gen Z, which make up the vast majority of today’s college and high school students, Taylor Swift’s career offers a myriad of opportunities for teaching economics. The impact of her career has led to a new term entering the economics lexicon: Swiftonomics (the economics of Taylor Swift and Swift’s impact on the economy). This paper provides two lesson plans that make use of the Taylor Swift phenomenon to illustrate the concepts of supply and demand and exchange rates. For each lesson plan, we provide links to videos and news articles and a range of assessment activities involving Quizizz and a standalone handout which can be used in-class or assigned for homework. The size, diversity, and devotion of Taylor Swift’s fanbase (colloquially known as Swifties) presents economic educators with a unique opportunity to incorporate economic lessons within their current curriculum, from high school through to an introductory economics course at the college level.
Copyright (c) 2024 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The purpose in this paper is to create a teaching module on the economics of automation. Avoiding technicalities but focusing on critical thinking, key ideas in the economics of automation are highlighted, and class discussion material is provided based on popular books published in the 2020s. Differing perspectives from these books allow for rich class discussions on topics including the risks of automation, the power of Big Tech, and policy responses for the digital economy. For ECON 101 students, Disney animation clips are provided as hooks to engage in analogy-based understanding of issues in automation. Likewise, other video clips are used to discuss the risks and dangers of automation related to jobs, scams, democracy, and political polarization. Overall, this teaching module highlights key ideas in the economics of automation, incorporates ideas from recently published books, and complements the lecture with videos to retain student interest.
FEMALE INFLUENCERS: THE ECONOMICS BEHIND THE MILLIONS
While women comprise nearly 60% of all undergraduate students in the United States (Causey et al., 2023), they account for less than one-third of economics majors (Buckles, 2019). There are few female role models in economics textbooks. To help address this lack of diversity and engage female students, we present teaching guides based on three of the most popular female influencers among Gen Z students. Each guide highlights an influencer's backstory and business acumen. This paper builds on the work of Geerling et al. (2024a and 2024b) who use viral YouTube and TikTok videos to engage Gen Z students on their social media platforms of choice. This paper offers a unique opportunity for educators to teach foundation-level economics concepts in a creative way while helping stimulate engagement among all students.
This paper introduces two exercises on shifts in simple non-linear demands within a monopoly market. These exercises aim to address a common misconception among undergraduate economics students: the mistaken belief that the comparative static effects of shifts in demand in monopoly and perfect competition are qualitatively identical. To illustrate that these comparative static results may diverge, we present examples in which an increase in demand—a shift to the right in the demand curve—leads to a higher price in a competitive market but results in a lower price in a monopoly market. Additionally, these exercises reinforce fundamental concepts such as marginal reasoning, profit calculation, and the significance of demand level and elasticity in monopoly pricing. Furthermore, they underscore the role of assumptions in economics. Our activities are tailored for undergraduate students enrolled in principles and intermediate-level economics, microeconomics, and industrial organization courses.
USING GAMES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT AND UNDERSTANDING OF STATISTICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
In this article we present a series of light-touch, easy to implement, classroom activities designed to improve students’ understanding and interpretation of regression coefficients. Using an experiment, we evaluate the effectiveness of the activities by randomly allocating first-year undergraduate students into a seminar with the activities (treatment group) or not (control group). We demonstrate that the classroom activities have a large, positive effect on several domains including engagement (measured by seminar attendance), enjoyment of learning (measured by an end-of-term student satisfaction survey), and their understanding of the material (measured by test scores). These results suggest that adopting more varied pedagogical approaches to teaching statistics/econometrics can benefit students.
EXTREME PRICING GOES VIRAL: LESSONS FOR TEACHING PRICE CONTROLS
Price controls are a popular topic among students. However, the effects of implementing price controls are not as straightforward as students typically expect, especially the unintended consequences that students tend to overlook. This paper provides three teaching guides designed to teach price controls which can be easily implemented in an introductory-level economics course. We build on the work of Geerling et al. (2023c) by using short-form viral videos from popular platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, which match the streaming and content medium of choice for Gen Z. The use of celebrities and social media influencers make abstract teaching moments more relatable to students. As such, this paper offers a unique opportunity for creatively teaching economics to a new generation of students.
Engaging undergraduate students in economics courses relies increasingly more on using classroom games or experiments. In this paper we propose a linear form of a popular game-theoretic simulation, and then we suggest multiple applications in a variety of contexts. Playing our game in the classroom, students can see for themselves whether their individual choices, guided by self-interest, tend to lead to nearly optimal group outcomes. With little to no change in the setup of our experiment, we show how any instructor can extend the analysis to exemplify inefficient pure-strategy Nash equilibria, the equality/efficiency trade-off and the issue of who “deserves” more, government redistribution versus private charity to the poor, the free-rider problem, and the tragedy of the commons.
WELFARE ANALYSIS WITH MULTIPLE MARKETS, MULTIPLE MARKET FAILURES OR SUBOPTIMAL POLICY CALIBRATION
One of the hallmarks of welfare analysis as a system for organizing policy-relevant evidence is that it embeds accounting standards. Every dollar of impact can, at least in theory, be included in a net benefit estimate exactly once—no more and no less. The visualization tools of partial equilibrium analysis can be powerful and elegant contributors to this goal, especially if integrated with accounting ledgers. However, only a few illustrative cases are taught in a manner that combines user-friendly analytic tools with accuracy. This paper fills in some of the resulting gaps, toward the goal of greater understanding for both students and the practitioners of policy-oriented welfare analysis they might eventually become.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! RECORDING CLASSROOM LECTURES – A SIMPLE AND AFFORDABLE APPROACH
While the demand for online courses has increased, many students also still want to be educated in a traditional face-to-face environment. Lecture capture offers a way for faculty to teach a class both face-to-face and online simultaneously, making the course accessible to both types of students. By using a camera to record the instructor and the whiteboard along with a screen capture and video editing program such as Camtasia 2000 or OBS Studio, instructors can record their in-person lectures and create high-quality videos that can be posted online. These videos can be used by students who are taking the course in an online format or who were unable to attend class as well as by students who attended the in-person lecture and would like to use the lecture video as a study aid. This paper describes a comparatively low-cost method for recording, editing, and producing online content using lecture capture. The features of two video recording software packages, Camtasia and OBS Studio, are compared, and step-by-step instructions are provided for using both software packages to record classroom lectures.
Copyright (c) 2023 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
ECONOMETRICS WITH YOUTUBE DATA: A TIME SERIES TEACHING CASE
This paper explains a teaching case I have designed for econometrics and business analytics courses. Time series remains a difficult topic to teach, in part because existing textbooks lack examples using real data and applicable to business problems students may encounter. This case aims to fill that gap using data from my own YouTube channel to give students an opportunity to practice time series analysis. Issues include endogeneity, seasonality, and unit roots. I also include discussion on how the case can be adapted for different course levels.
DEPICTING DEADWEIGHT LOSS FROM IMPERFECT INFORMATION
The concept of deadweight loss is used by introductory microeconomic textbooks to convey the social welfare consequences of many market failures and distortions. But while the market model is used to reveal the deadweight loss from externalities, market power, taxes, tariffs, and even public goods, it is not employed to illustrate the deadweight loss from imperfect information. This paper advances a way to relate imperfect information’s effect on social welfare by showing the deadweight loss it causes within the standard supply and demand framework.
USING DISCUSSION TO IMPROVE ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE
This paper offers a response to a paradox in the literature on economics education. The paradox is that economic knowledge has been found to be sensitive to an individual’s ethical, moral, and political convictions. I hypothesize that the source of this paradox is the divergence between the learning of economics and its application outside the classroom. Often the teaching and assessment of economic knowledge focuses on the technical dimensions of our discipline. This begins with introducing students to theory in principles courses and continues as the subject becomes more mathematically rigorous. Outside the classroom, the more subjective elements of economics matter tremendously. From the minimum wage to climate policy, the application of economic knowledge is steeped in normative considerations. In response to the divergence between the learning and application of economics, the normative and technical sides of economics ought to be taught in tandem. In this paper, ways to use discussion to bridge the gap between these two branches of economic knowledge is presented. The merits and limitations of this technique are considered. For the reader interested in trying this technique, a sample selection of prompts that have been used in principles courses is provided. Ultimately, the goal of teaching is to increase students’ economic knowledge. The argument is made that open-ended discussion, coupled with lecture, is an effective way to achieve this end.
This paper econometrically investigates what variables impact the probability a college/university offers an undergraduate major in economics, multiple tracks within the major, or economics minor. Data is collected from four-year, comprehensive institutions, with control variables accounting for whether the school is public, year founded, enrollment, if the school offers a business degree, and selectivity measures. In addition, data is collected on the requirements of economics majors across institutions. Regression is used to determine what institutional variables influence specific track requirements, such as math/statistics, econometrics, capstone course, and internship. Given the unique data set that has been created, this paper offers new information and several conclusions about the economics major.
TEACHING PRICE AND INCOME ELASTICITIES OF DEMAND USING EXCEL AND FEDERAL RESERVE ECONOMIC DATA
This paper describes an assignment designed for use in an undergraduate Principles of Economics course. The assignment is a pedagogical tool that encourages collaborative problem-solving and the use of recent up-to-date data from the Federal Reserve Economics Data (FRED) to compute and analyze the price and income elasticities of demand. This tool is an efficient way for undergraduate economics students to understand the price and income elasticity of demand, gain valuable experience using public datasets, and develop their computer skills without taking classes outside of the economics major.
TOWARDS A RENEWED PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING TRADE
The objective in this paper is to provide a renewed perspective on teaching trade. The idea is to create a teaching module like the one offered by the CORE textbook that blends microeconomics and macroeconomics concepts to address globalization. Neoclassical textbooks are contrasted with heterodox ones to provide a comparative outlook on key themes on trade. Subject material from various textbooks is complemented with YouTube videos, game theory applications, and a nuanced graphical analysis on topical issues. Apart from tariffs and current account deficits, the issues of fair trade, environmental sustainability, and economic sanctions are considered to appeal to students.
FOUR COMPARATIVE STEADY-STATE EXERCISES USING THE DIAMOND-MORTENSEN-PISSARIDES MODEL
The Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model of two-sided labor market search is now a common topic in first-year graduate courses in macroeconomics. Following Pissarides (2011), Alogoskoufis (2019) derives a two-equation in two unknowns solution to the DMP model that is useful for teaching this topic. I discuss four comparative steady-state exercises that he does not consider: (i) a direct change in the posting price of a vacancy; (ii) a change in labor-market matching efficiency; (iii) financing unemployment benefits that are proportional to the real wage with a labor income tax; and (iv) the addition of a minimum wage. The first two exercises are empirically motivated, and the second two exercises are policy motivated.
NUDGING STUDENTS THROUGH EMAIL COMMUNICATION
This study analyzes the results of an experiment using personalized emails to nudge second-year students to attend a career fair. The study relied on peer mentors to send out emails informing students about the details of the career fair. Students were randomly assigned to receive an email that focused on the benefits of attending the career fair and offered pizza and a prize if they attended a session to help them sign up and prepare for the career fair. The results indicate that the intervention had no measurable effect on increasing the likelihood that students attend the help session or attend the career fair. Several reasons for this might be because of email overload, present-biased preferences, and factors related to COVID. Further, we provide guidance on what might be done to address these factors in future interventions.
Copyright (c) 2023 Justin Davidson, Chanikan (Pluem) Yongyuan, Joshua A. Price http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
PRICE ELASTICITY, TAX INCIDENCE, AND SALES VOLUME: A SIMPLE MODEL
Most intermediate microeconomics textbooks introduce taxes into the basic market model by using a supply-and-demand diagram, and explaining that the economic incidence of the tax falls most heavily on the group (buyers or sellers) whose behavior is least price-elastic. We extend that presentation by using algebra to relate the tax incidence more explicitly to the measurement of price elasticity. The result is a convenient equation showing that the ratio of tax burdens is exactly the inverse of the ratio of (absolute) price elasticities, along with well-known expressions for each group’s share of the tax burden. Additionally, the model generates the impact factor by which an excise tax reduces the quantity of a good sold. Both hypothetical and empirical examples of price elasticity are provided to illustrate the effects of excise and sales taxes.
Copyright (c) 2022 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
USING DATA FROM CLASSROOM EXPERIMENTS TO TEACH DEADWEIGHT LOSS
This paper demonstrates a novel approach to teaching the concept of deadweight loss using a double oral auction experiment conducted in the classroom. After the experiment, students are given the associated data and are tasked with calculating both predicted and observed consumer and producer surplus transaction by transaction. They are then asked to differentiate between deadweight loss resulting from an inefficient allocation of production and consumption given the observed number of transactions and the deadweight loss resulting from an inefficient number of transactions. We find an improved understanding of these concepts from the participating class.
INVENTORIES IN GDP: A CLASSROOM LEARNING STRATEGY
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a component of macroeconomics courses that is widely used by economists and the society alike. However, many students find it difficult to understand what GDP encompasses. The understanding of the concept can be facilitated by a tool that explains the specific spending categories in the GDP identity. This study presents a teaching strategy and tool to facilitate students' learning of the role of inventories in the GDP and how inventories can be used concurrently with other spending categories, that is, Consumption (C), Investment (I), Government Expenditure (G), and Net Exports (NX). It presents four scenarios in which inventories are used as a corrective mechanism to solve the temporal problem that the good produced in one year and sold in another create. By using this tool, the students can quickly and fully understand the role of inventories in GDP calculations.
TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE TO ECON 101 STUDENTS
There is a growing recognition that ECON 101 does not adequately prepare students to address the pressing issues of our times including climate change. However, options such as the CORE text are unsuitable because of information overload and the use of advanced technical concepts and techniques. The objective in this paper is to introduce climate change to ECON 101 students in a way that minimizes student confusion, instructor workload, and upholds Mankiw’s approach of clarity before nuance. A new approach is delineated based on popular books, magazine articles, a YouTube video, and simple exercises. This five-part approach consists of emphasizing the urgency of climate change, thinking outside the box through geoengineering, the limits of individual actions like buying local or going vegan, the comparative outlook on various policy tools with a simple equation solving exercise, and game theory to broach the issue of international collaboration.
USING K-POP TO TEACH INDIFFERENCE CURVE ANALYSIS, BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS AND GAME THEORY
Economic educators have been teaching with pop culture for decades, but until recently the focus was on English-based media. In this paper, we build on the work of Wooten et al. (2021b), who show how K-pop can be integrated into the principles-level curriculum. We develop three teaching guides that can be used to teach aspects of behavioral economics, game theory and indifference curve analysis – topics which are taught at the end of most principles-level courses but are also standalone upper-level courses. The three artists chosen – BTS, BLACKPINK and TWICE – have huge global followings. We hope this paper will contribute to the library of diverse and inclusive teaching resources while helping to address the deficit of resources available to instructors of upper-level courses.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH WITH INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Over the last decade, pedagogies have shifted toward high impact practices, asking students at US universities to engage in undergraduate research, for example. At the same time, the enrollment of international students, especially in the business and economics disciplines, has increased substantially until 2019. This study focuses on student performance and the pedagogical strategies of teaching a required undergraduate economics research capstone course with a majority of international students from China and South Korea. Differences between the pedagogical practices of the home and host countries are highlighted with reference to Confucian Heritage Learners. Ten years of performance data from the capstone course reveal that international students are more likely to successfully complete their undergraduate research experience than domestic students but earn lower grades in the process. This corroborates the hypothesis that Confucian Heritage Learners may struggle with undergraduate research requirements at US universities. A number of strategies are discussed that were implemented to help international students complete their capstone experience course. International students received focused help with ideation, application of the scientific method, language preparation and plagiarism, as well as cultural knowledge.
THE MICRO IN PRINCIPLES OF MACRO: A SURVEY AND MODEST PROPOSAL
To better understand the degree to which students enrolled in principles of macroeconomics are exposed to fundamental microeconomic concepts, we survey twenty popular textbooks. Using the TUCE guidelines as a framework, we categorize the microeconomic content of the textbooks by topic and amount of coverage. We find that for the significant percentage of undergraduates who take only a single semester of macroeconomics, these students are left without enough exposure to the core concepts of microeconomics – including ones that underpin macroeconomic models. On its own, we hope our detailed survey will prove useful to instructors who must select between a myriad of seemingly similar textbooks. In addition, we make a modest proposal for how instructors could include some specific microeconomic content at low opportunity cost.
Economists and other scholars have long explored the role of envy in personal and social decision-making processes. The construct envy functions both as a motivator and deterrent in a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, politics, economics, and business. While many studies indicate that envy plays a role in individual and societal behavior, its extent and exact definition remain a source of debate in academic literature. Additionally, most research studies the construct in Baby Boomer and Generation X populations. Using exploratory and descriptive research methods, we investigate current college-aged students’ perceptions of envy to discern its pervasiveness and influence on personal, social, and political values.
Copyright (c) 2021 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
TEACHING ECONOMICS WITH SCENES FROM MONEYBALL
The award-winning film Moneyball is considered one of economic educators’ top movies for teaching economics, but resources to teach with the film are scant. We summarize eight key scenes in the movie that are closely tied with economics topics, many of which can be used in a principles-level course. For each scene we provide the corresponding topic, a brief summary, and a follow-up question to ask students.