The authors list economic concepts and issues covered in the children's books published by Theodor Geisel and discuss his treatment of concepts that appear most often and that are treated in greater depth. Some concepts are sophisticated and taught as formal concepts only in college-level economics courses. Others are basic and used in economics…

A series of studies in several countries tested the economic understanding of people, particularly students. The performance of the subjects is typically conceived as showing "deficits". These alleged deficits seem to correspond with scepticism towards market economy. Better test scores in general correlate with higher appraisal of…

When highly visible lapses in ethics occur, education gets some of the blame. Principals in the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and the Enron scandal had been educated at Harvard and other elite business schools, where professional and moral ideals had arguably been replaced by a focus on profits at the expense of ethics. A long-standing tradition…

A strategy of continuous team assessment over three years, comprising of a series of tests and a major project, was introduced into scheduled tutorial classes in an attempt to improve flagging attendance and low student motivation. The assessment tasks were designed to be undertaken in teams of two students, with ongoing feedback as an integral…

The authors describe an interdisciplinary course team-taught by an economist and a sociologist. Historically mindful of the less than amicable relationship between these disciplines, these colleagues developed a course that attempted to illuminate the different perspectives of economics and sociology in relation to selected health themes. Such a…

The problem of this study was to determine the number of first semester college freshmen who could correctly identify the individuals who are generally considered the "fathers" of communism and capitalism. A questionnaire was administered to 241 freshmen students enrolled in English 101, College Reading and Writing, at Texas A&M…

In recent years, there has been some dispute over the appropriate way to model decision making in professional sports leagues. In particular, Szymanski and Kesenne (2004) argue that formulating the decision-making problem in a noncooperative game leads to radically different conclusions about the nature of competition in sports leagues. The author…

Monotone methods enable comparative static analysis without the restrictive assumptions of the implicit-function theorem. Ease of use and flexibility in solving comparative static and game-theory problems have made monotone methods popular in the economics literature and in graduate courses, but they are still absent from undergraduate…

The authors detail an urban economics experiment that is easily run in the classroom. The experiment has a flexible design that allows the instructor to explore how congestion, zoning, public transportation, and taxation levels determine the bid-rent function. Heterogeneous agents in the experiment compete for land use using a simple auction…

Historians work in a discipline with few inherent concepts and are obliged to draw upon many fields in recreating the past. Yet authors of most school history texts, state and national standards and curriculum materials seldom incorporate economic analysis in their work. Just look at state standards that include Adam Smith and John Locke but draw…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Getting Back to Average: American Fifteen-Year-Olds Rank 14th in Reading, 17th in Science, and 25th in Mathematics,…

Economic literacy is vital for functioning effectively in today's society. Consumers need to manage their finances, investors need to plan for their future, and voters need to choose among competing economic plans. As students move on to college or enter the workforce, their understanding of the economy will help them become financially…

Previous studies have focused on how well students are learning economics, how teachers are trained, and other outcomes associated with improved understanding of economics. However, almost nothing is reported in the research literature on economics teachers' views of the curriculum, how they teach their subject, their views on public issues, and…

This study examined the level of economics knowledge, overall and on specific economic concepts after Albanian 11th grade and 12th grade students completed their required economics course and investigated how economics knowledge differed by student and teacher characteristics. There were 1,509 students who participated in this research from 12…

The Monty Hall three-door, "Let's Make a Deal" game, named after the 1970s television show, is used widely in economics, econometrics, statistics, and game-theory-based teaching, as well as in many other disciplines. Its solutions and underlying assumptions arouse great passion and argument, in both the academic and popular press. Most economists…