Essay of studying Economics

Economists pride themselves on studying the most rigorous social science. A hybrid of the
arts and sciences, economics offers a different perspective on a wide range of issues. Yet is
precisely the combination of economic intuition and quantitative modelling that causes
economics to be generally viewed as a difficult subject . In fact there is no such thing as
‘difficult' or ‘easy' economics: any topic within economics can be made as easy or as
complicated as one wants. The question is, to quote Einstein, how can we make economics
"as simple as possible, but not simpler"?

Fortunately, there are many ways in which one can make economics simple and thus not
just easier to learn but also more enjoyable. In order to understand how we can achieve this,
it is important to understand what precisely makes economics difficult in the first place.
The problem with economics is that it is both intuitive and counterintuitive; it is highly
applicable but at the same time abstract. On the one hand, economics aims to model human
behaviour and decisions. Hence, it is no surprise that many if not most economic theories
do reflect our everyday behaviour and appear to be very logical. Yet, at the same time,
economic modelling entails making assumptions so that we can concentrate on the
economic variables which are of interest to us. However, these assumptions often lead to
results that seem both abstract and illogical. Take the assumption of "non-satiation", a
property of indifference curves. Most people would agree that more is better: two beers is
better than one beer. However, after many hours at the pub, there comes a point where
switching to water is probably a good idea. Economic theory, however, would have us drink
more and more beer, since this would bring us to a higher utility level. If even the most
basic economic assumptions do not appear to make much sense, how can we go about
making difficult economics appear logical and intuitive?

"Incorporating different kinds of material into lectures not only made the explanation
of economics topics clearer, but also made the theories covered memorable."

First, it is important to constantly link the theory taught in lectures and class to the real
world. Simply laying the foundations of economic theory makes the subject appear too
abstract and thus difficult to grasp. The applications of economic theory to the real world
can be easily shown by way of historical examples, newspaper articles and academic papers
and journals. Unfortunately, interesting papers and articles usually only appear as optional
reading material at university, and consequently, are typically ignored by students. Thus,
although to fully understand economic theory it is necessary to be able to apply it to
different issues, this is something lost on many students. In order to tackle this problem, I
would put increased emphasis on the applications of the theory taught in class. I would not
just limit myself to reading the course text book and the examples it provides, but would
also look at related academic papers and newspaper articles.

Second, I would change the way in which students are assessed. Having only exams at the
end of the year and no assessed coursework means that many students leave studying to the
last minute, rather than working constantly throughout the year. Economics is not a subject
that one can cram. It takes time in order to fully grasp different concepts and to be able to
apply them to different issues. Economics becomes a lot easier once we give ourselves time
to absorb the material covered in class and lectures to and see how these mechanisms work
in practice. Hence, incentivising students to review course material on a regular basis —
through regular tests, assessed coursework or midterm exams — would help students to
better assimilate economic theory, making the subject easier.

Third, I would introduce more interactive material in lectures and classes. At university,
teaching generally becomes a lot more formal. Yet it is not because we become older or
because we are taught subjects at a more advanced level that certain teaching methods
become less effective. At school, we were required to prepare presentations, write projects,
work in teams and teachers typically used different audiovisual materials. We were also
encouraged to actively engage in debates and discussions, developing arguments using the
ideas and concepts we had learnt in class. The reason behind such teaching methods, which
require more active participation of students rather than learning by rote, is that they help
improve learning and make difficult topics seem easier to students. There is no reason why
this should be different for university students. In my first year, during a lecture on
signalling, my economics lecturer explained the full disclosure principle using an example
with frogs and brought three frog statues in to illustrate his argument. More recently, my
monetary economics lecturer showed us an online game, where you can pretend to be the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Incorporating different kinds of material into lectures not
only made the explanation of economics topics clearer, but also made the theories covered
memorable.

Much of the difficulty of economics stems from the fact that many do see it as the "dismal
science". Thus, economics can be made easier by making it more enjoyable. This can be
done by highlighting the applications of economics as well as fostering debate amongst
students. At the end of the day, each and every one of us is an economic agent. There is no
reason why learning economics should be beyond our reach.

The key point on how to make difficult economics easier to learn is simply to make people
enjoy studying economics. If economics students would invest the same time on studying
that they do on their hobbies and would value their studying time as much as they value
their free time, then economics would be much more accessible. Nothing is too difficult if
you are strongly motivated and invest enough time.

The difference between an obligation and a desire is just a matter of attitude. When we
enjoy an activity, time goes fast, but when we are bored or uncomfortable, we feel the clock
slowing down. So the crucial point would be changing the students' perception on
economics in order to ‘accelerate the clock' and make them have fun and take pleasure in
studying economics. And there is not anything better than a game to do so.

When we were children, we used to explore the world and reality through games, which
made the process of discovering the world very fun. Playing with a ball we discovered the
practical aspects of the Law of gravity, many years before encountering Sir Isaac Newton in
our first physics book. Some years later we had our first contact with the world of the
finances playing Monopoly, making considerable money when renting our flats and
receiving interests from loans.
Why not rely on the same strategy to continue learning within the world of economics? The
next proposal is a practical one, which is not aimed to substitute for the current means of
study and assessment but rather to complement them.

When we were kids we learnt a lot of things from the real world through games, why
not do so now?

At the International Politics department of Aberystwyth University, the crisis games are
very popular among the students. In these role playing games, which are held twice per
course, students are assigned to a team and have to cooperate with their teammates and
negotiate with rivals. The goals to be achieved are set by the students themselves within the
a context of a hypothetical political crisis posed by the academic staff involved in the
simulation. The ‘gods' act as referees of the game and such a role is developed by the
lecturers.

These games are voluntary. To participate, students have to pay a certain price (around
eighty pounds per person) which goes to cover the travel, accommodation, food and
reading material. Because places are limited and these games are very popular, the places
are often covered within the first few days.

This means that students perceive these simulations not as duties (even if they have to read
information, study material and to research the topic to engage in the game) but instead are
perceived as games and enjoyed as such. Therefore, since getting involved in such an
activity in their free time, students are fulfilling a desire rather than an obligation.

If these kinds of simulations would have economic instead of political content, they could
be very useful tools for teaching and learning economics. In the same way that lectures,
tutorials, essays, and presentations are the normal ways of assessing students; these
simulations could be used also as tools for evaluating students, and thus could be part of
normal modules.

These simulations could be performed at micro or macro level. When designed from a
microeconomic perspective, students would engage in teams as managers of firms, and they
should compete among themselves and solve the different problems and questions that the
economic actors have to face in the market: how many workers should I employ? Which
salary should I pay my workers? At what price should I sell the goods? From a
macroeconomic perspective, students could assume the role of governments when trying to
achieve their economic goals: how should we tackle an increase of unemployment? What to
do before a high rate of inflation? How to make an advantageous deal on International
Trade with other governments taking in account one's national economy? In both cases
students would be applying the theoretical concepts previously learned.

Lecturers would assume the role of referees and should introduce variables to see how
students react before certain economic problems: price fluctuations, high demand of certain
products, and so on. In other words, lecturers should supervise and control the game and
manage the market response to the decisions taken by the economic actors represented by
the students.
Although part of these simulations could be developed during certain special lectures or
seminars in which the main developments, events and decisions would be announced,
through the use of the internet the students and the lecturer could develop the simulation
out of the classroom, actualising the information or communicating the decisions taken.

I also think it would be possible to design a simulation which could integrate the micro and
macro levels. Engaging in this kind of game, students would not only acquire the necessary
knowledge to deal with the issues from the two perspectives, but could also perceive and
understand how economics actors interact and interrelate at both levels.

Introducing such role playing games as normal assessments within the modules would
make the study of economics easier because students would enjoy it much more. Such
simulations have a strong potential to promote learning outcomes. Learning would be
amusing, but also theory and practice would be integrated within the same exercise, since
students would not be just passive spectators. This is worth encouraging, since one of the
main problems of understanding economics is the lack of a practical view of the theory.
And economic learning and teaching would be dynamic instead of static. Other extra
benefits would be the development of team-work skills and taking decisions in limited
periods of time, simulating a real economic scenario. The cost of implementing such
measures as normal assessments would be really low in relation to the potential benefits.

When we were kids we learnt a lot of things from the real world through games, why not do
so now? After all, there is still a little kid inside all of us.

Despite what some people say, economics is a great and fascinating science, importance of
which in our everyday life cannot be underestimated. However, quite often I hear my
fellow students passionately cursing the science for its complicated theoretical models that
are sometimes impenetrable to the fun-seeking mind of a student. Moreover, the very same
models are perceived as being fancy scientific creations belonging in the world of J. R. R.
Tolkien, with Frodo and Gandalf being represented by Adam Smith's invisible hand and
ever-present perfect information. In my opinion, more often than not, such feelings are a
result of outdated and inefficient teaching methods which lead to frustration,
procrastination and eventual lack of ability to understand economics, resulting in
disillusionment and sometimes even hatred for the science. However, all of this could be
avoided if slightly different, more innovative, teaching methods were used.

In order to make our lives easier and more enjoyable, lecturers should dedicate more
attention to explaining the intuition behind sometimes mind-blowing mathematics,
establish a greater connection between theory and the real world as well as use digital
technology to facilitate certain aspects of teaching. These three areas are the subject of this
essay.

"Even though such topics as imperfect competition and trade barriers are certainly
firmly ingrained in the real world, economics students are rarely shown how those
concepts work outside textbooks."
More often than not, mathematical topics are presented in a manner similar to
bombardment: they all hold an element of unexpectedness and cause complete chaos. Too
often, lecturers plunge straight into the great depths of a mathematical and statistical
swamp, completely forgetting to appreciate the importance of intuition behind numbers. A
myriad of complicated equations may inspire awe in some students, but it will almost
certainly create severe allergic reactions and withdrawal syndromes in the great majority of
us.

In econometrics, this style of teaching usually leads to memorization for the exams which is
completely devoid of understanding — something that is a great shame given how
fundamentally important econometrics is in economics. As students, we would greatly
benefit from first of all being explained the intuition behind the theory and then, step by
step, being led through the mathematical side of the story.

Secondly, there is too little emphasis on real world applications and their discussion. Even
though such topics as imperfect competition and trade barriers are certainly firmly
ingrained in the economics of the real world, economics students are rarely shown how
those concepts work outside the sometimes fancy world of textbooks. As a consequence,
students often pay less attention to theory as it is seen as similar to the world of Middle
Earth, the main difference being the fact that the latter is much more entertaining. Such
attitude decreases interest in economics and makes theory seem harder than it actually is.

Some lecturers try to tackle the mentioned issue by handing out articles from The
Economist and the FT or by providing links to various websites and then silently praying
the students would read them. Those handouts usually find their place in the drawers
dedicated to random materials that may be of some use in the future, no matter how
distant... The drawer tends to fill up rather quickly, meaning the contents end their journey
in rather unrewarding place - the dust bin. Group tutorials, more often than not, simply do
not provide the opportunity to discuss such materials due to time constraints.

Recently, the move to WebCT and similar e-teaching systems has allowed creating
discussion boards. However, from my experience, students are rarely willing to engage in
discussions due to two main reasons: lack of anonymity and incentive. Whoever wishes to
participate in discussions on WebCT has to use their real name. As long as that is the case,
students will be frightened to post their ideas due to the fear of being seen as stupid and,
quite often, as geeky, having no social life — hardly the image a student needs. If there
were anonymity, the situation would almost certainly improve. Moreover, no incentive is
provided for engaging in such discussions. Although the solution is less than trivial, I
believe it does exist. If active participation were rewarded by a bonus in the grade, the
interest in the mentioned activities would rise greatly, improving the overall understanding
of the theory by students and creating greater appreciation of the subject.

Last but not least, there has been little effort to use animation as a teaching method.
Explaining economic theory often involves the use of graphs. While this does not create
problems with the more basic models taught in the first year of studies, the same could not
be said about the more complex ones encountered later on. Why? More often than not, such
graphs have a dozen of attributes such as quantities and prices, a similar number of supply/
demand/ marginal benefit etc. functions in addition to a few areas measuring welfare. Some
of those graphs are a monument to all things clutter and test drawing skills to the very
maximum. However, they also have full potential of driving a completely sane person mad,
and rather quickly, it should be said. Learning becomes a very tedious exercise, often
leading to frustration and confrontation with student's worst enemy — procrastination.

The problem could be avoided altogether if the teaching methods were more innovative.
For example, by using Flash animation, a software teaching suite could be created where
students could see every single effect in isolation, such as imposition of a tariff on welfare
of a country, by simply clicking a button representing that effect.

Yes, economics has the full potential to make Nightmare on Elm Street sound like a
bedtime story for little children. However, this does not need to be the case. If more sanity-
friendly teaching methods were used, students would have fewer headaches,
disillusionment moments and, generally, would derive more satisfaction from studying
economics, a fascinating subject, the beauty of which is too often found at the end of a
gigantic artificial maze of incomprehensibility.