Reviews four broad clusters of concepts which are of fundamental importance for consumer economic understanding in the secondary school and gives suggestions that can be used to build a consumer economics program in the secondary school. (LRA)

Suggests a cost-of-living unit for business education classes which provides students with exercises that allow them to estimate the income gained from full-time work and examine the costs of independent living. The areas examined are employment, housing, transportation, food, child care, clothing, medical care, and savings. (CT)

Defines economic awareness as a critical awareness of the use of scarce resources. Identifies the three major perspectives of economic awareness as knowledge, procedure and needs-based. States that it is possible to coalesce these perspectives into a fourth eclectic perspective, and to provide guidelines for teachers in line with the national…

Describes how economists have typically used literary works and viewed their authors. Provides a selection of literary treatments of economic concepts, issues, and themes as resources for high school and university economics instructors. Comments on the scope and diversity of these materials. Includes a bibliography of literary works with…

Presents exercises that introduce issues of advertising. Activities are designed for a variety of levels. Uses recent advertising data from a number of large corporations. Provides information concerning additional resources. (KO)

Reviews recent research into the theory of the kinked demand curve in economics. Applies this theory to economic concepts such as marginal cost and price flexibility. Discusses the implications for corporations and government policymakers. (CFR)

Presents instructions for playing "Widgets and Blasters," an educational game designed to illustrate the functioning of a competitive market and help students understand economic models. Explains that the aims of the activity are to encourage students to identify the pattern of price over time and analyze the pattern in terms of…

Presents study results on gender differences in economic knowledge. Addresses the question of whether gender gaps in economic understanding widen as students progress through college. Reports that no evidence was found to support the hypothesis that significant and consistent gender differences exist in college students' performances on economic…

Identifies inconsistencies in treatments of the perfect competition, monopoly welfare comparison in textbooks for economics instruction. Argues for explanation of how experiments are being conducted and explicit identification of all underlying assumptions. Suggests straightforward analysis of the social cost of monopoly based on a comparison…

Describes a six-week economics project for high school students. Suggests teaching consumer economics by having students pretend they are broke and out on their own. Discusses activities, materials, and student essays demonstrating the use and understanding of basic consumer terminology, credit, insurance, budgeting, and housing. (DK)

Focuses on Allan Bloom's perception of a classic text and his belief that there are no classic texts in the social sciences. Contends there are definitive works in economics and develops a list of six criteria to determine them. Discusses economics books that might be considered classic works, and lists textbooks that refer to these classics. (NL)

Discusses the conventional theory of free riding as discussed in economic textbooks. Argues the theory is empirically invalid, and reviews various scholarly viewpoints on this issue. Suggests alternatives to teaching current economic theory and argues that the concept of self-interest neglects the ethical issues in behavior. (NL)

Presents findings of an analysis of Italian seventh grade students' understanding of capitalism and socialism. Reports that knowledge of the topics was rather poor. Concludes that students who had studied the topics more thoroughly had somewhat, but not substantially, greater understanding of capitalism and socialism. Calls for more research. (SG)

Discusses the economic concepts of complementarity and anticomplementarity related to prices of inputs. Reviews traditional treatment of these concepts by economics instructors and textbooks. Presents an approach that builds on the concepts of input complementarity, independence, and anticomplementarity. (CFR)

Argues that the textbook presentation of the concept of natural monopolies has changed little since the early 1960s. Suggests that most economics textbooks have ignored the issue of economies of scale versus fixed costs. Notes that educators often discuss economies of scale without explaining why certain industries enjoy greater scale economies…