This classroom game illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of various regulatory frameworks aimed at internalizing negative externalities from pollution. Specifically, the game divides students into three groups--a government regulatory agency and two polluting firms--and allows them to work through a system of uniform command-and-control…

This classroom experiment introduces students to the notion of credit risk and expected return, by allowing them to trade on comparable corporate bond issues from two types of markets: investment-grade and high-yield markets. Investment-grade issues have a lower probability of default than high-yield issues and thus provide a lower yield.…

In this "Idea Sharing" article, the author describes the techniques used when teaching oral summary making to second-year students studying Business English at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. The techniques are based on peer assessment, which…

Over 20 years ago, the late William Zahka (1990, 1998) outlined how the acceptance speeches of those who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science could be used to teach undergraduates. This article updates and expands Zahka's work, identifying some of the issues discussed by recent Nobel Laureates, classifying their speeches by topic…

The conception of economics education implicit in the "Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics" is fundamentally at odds with what ought to be a primary goal of a liberal education: to teach students of all ages to treat all truth as provisional. Articulate the consensus, but also articulate questions about this consensus, questions…

Global imbalances and the sustainability of large U.S. current account deficits have dominated international macroeconomics of late. Pedagogically, a clear disconnect exists between graduate-level open-economy macroeconomics that emphasizes intertemporal current account models and net foreign asset adjustment featuring valuation effects, and,…

Weather phenomena across the United States have provided heightened attention to climate change in headlines such as "Heavy Rain and Floods: The 'New Normal' with Climate Change?" ("Christian Science Monitor," Aug. 14, 2014); "Delay Action on Climate Change by 10 Years and Costs Rocket 40%"…

Guilds are defined as associations of craftsmen and merchants formed to promote the economic interests of their members as well as to provide protection and mutual aid. As both business and social organizations, guilds were prolific throughout Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Guilds were organized so that workers would learn…

This article describes a simple classroom activity that illustrates how economic theory can be used for mechanism design. The rules for a set of contests are presented; the results typically obtained from these contests illustrate how the prize structure can be manipulated in order to produce a particular outcome. Specifically, this activity is…

Consider an auction in which one potential buyer wishes to participate, but the other potential buyer would rather the bidding not start. However, once bidding starts, the reluctant firm participates (submits "bluff bids") simply to make the eventual winner pay more. This incentive exists when the marginal effect of the winning bid is to increase…

The typical method of instruction in economics is chalk and talk. Economics courses often require writing equations and drawing graphs and charts, which are all best done in freehand. Unlike static PowerPoint presentations, tablet computers create dynamic nonlinear presentations. Wireless technology allows professors to write on their tablets and…

In this article, the author explains why field experiments can improve what we teach and how we teach economics. Economists no longer operate as passive observers of economic phenomena. Instead, they participate actively in the research process by collecting data from field experiments to investigate the economics of everyday life. This change can…

The critical roles of entrepreneurs in creating, operating, and destroying markets, as well as their importance in driving long-term economic growth are still generally either absent from principles of economics texts or relegated to later chapters. The primary difficulties in explaining entrepreneurship at the principles level are the lack of a…

Corporate "social-issues management" courses are often taught without in-depth reference to economics, but they afford an opportunity both to review ground-level microeconomics issues including pricing and profit maximization under different market structures and to introduce more advanced topics such as externalities, introductory game theory,…

The authors show how the causes of and the gains from current account imbalances can be integrated into undergraduate economics courses using the same pedagogical tools that are used to explain comparative advantage and the gains from trade. A nonzero current account provides a mechanism for intertemporal trade, and a country has a comparative…