Economics in Detention is a University of Maryland Extension program that teaches inmates essential principles of economics as a foundation to a spectrum of decision making. Also, the program includes an emphasis on starting a small business after incarceration. The idea of this program emanates from an invitation by the Baltimore City Detention…

There is a growing interest among educators in teaching and learning practices based on mindfulness, a concept derived from eastern meditative traditions. This paper describes how mindfulness practices and concepts can be used to enhance the student's learning experience in beginning economics courses. Specific areas with a high potential for…

Although there are currently only a few undergraduate journals in economics, we expect their numbers to increase substantially in the future because of several developments: (1) research and writing activity is increasing in economics programs, (2) online publication is now more feasible and cost efficient than ever, and (3) students are…

Undergraduate economics lags behind cutting-edge economic theory. The author briefly reviews six related advances that profoundly extend and deepen economic analysis: game-theoretic modeling, collective-action problems, information economics and contracting, social preference theory, conceptualizing rationality, and institutional theory. He offers…

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,…

In many finance and economics courses as well as in practice, the concept of risk aversion is reduced to the standard deviation of returns, whereby risk-averse investors prefer to minimize their portfolios' standard deviations. In reality, the concept of risk aversion is richer and more interesting than this, and can easily be conveyed through…

The ability to work in groups across time and space has become a frequent requirement for the workplace and is increasingly common in higher education, but there is a surprising lack of research on how online groups work. This research applies analytic approaches used in studies of face-to-face classroom "talk" to multiple groups in two…

The study reviewed here examined whether taking a course with a tenure track professor versus a non-tenure track professor for first-term freshman-level courses (e.g., introductory economics) had an impact on students' future enrollment and performance in classes in the same subject. Data from 15,662 students who entered Northwestern University,…

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…

The stock market has a high profit and high risk features, on the stock market analysis and prediction research has been paid attention to by people. Stock price trend is a complex nonlinear function, so the price has certain predictability. This article mainly with improved BP neural network (BPNN) to set up the stock market prediction model, and…

"If free trade is a no-brainer, why isn't trade free?" Students often express such sentiments at the conclusion of a typical international trade course, during which they have learned that free trade is optimal, but that countries continue to restrict trade substantially. This article describes a simulation of a round of trade…

The use of online lecture recordings as a supplement to physical lectures is an increasingly popular tool at many universities. This paper combines survey data with student record data for students in a "Microeconomics Principles" class to examine the relative effects of lecture attendance and online lecture recordings. The main finding…

The authors examine two factors that may affect student achievement in economics principles courses: working for pay and the primary source of funds (employer tuition reimbursement, loans, scholarships, financial aid, self-financing, parental transfers, other) used to pay for college for a sample of students in economics principles classes at a…

The second edition of the "Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics" was published by the Council for Economic Education in 2010. The authors examine the process for revising these precollege content standards and highlight several changes that appear in the new document. They also review the impact the standards have had on precollege…

After three years of treading water (2005, 2006, and 2007), in 2008 (academic year 2007-08), undergraduate degrees in economics awarded by U.S. colleges and universities resumed the strong upward trajectory they exhibited from 1997 through 2004, when they rose almost 60 percent over seven years. This trend has continued unabated since 2007, with…