Although she encountered criticism of her work, Harriet Martineau was the most widely read economics educator of 19th century Great Britain. Martineau wrote for the masses; she was convinced that it was each citizen's civic duty to learn economics. She relied on the body of knowledge which existed in her day: Mill's "Elements of Political…

The first priority of our schools should be to provide students with fundamental literacy skills and to provide them with enough understanding of the society so they can function effectively as citizens. More emphasis should be placed on education about the economic system. (Author/IRT)

Reviews nine books, published between 1981 and 1984, which focus on various aspects of the relationship between law and economics. Maintains that taken together, these works provide a higher intellectual plateau from which the field of law and economics can continue to grow. (JDH)

Describes required content, promotion standards, and evaluation mechanisms for economics courses in Australian high schools. (JDH)

A three-day unit, including an auction, designed to teach basic economics. (NP)

A consumer affairs attorney points up pitfalls awaiting the unschooled shopper and suggests approaches to consumer education. (JK)

Considers two alternative views of competition found in the economics literature. The author demonstrates that these alternative views of competition underlie alternative views in other areas of economics, including welfare economics and micro-economic policy. Implications for college students and teachers are examined. (Author/AM)

Explains why an econometric practice introduced by J.C. Soper cannot eliminate the problems caused by multicollinearity. The author suggests that it can be a useful technique in that it forces researchers to pay more attention to the specifications of their models. (AM)

Attempts to clarify the concepts of, and the link between, fixed costs and sunk costs. Argues that the root of confusion is the inconsistency in defining the term fixed costs. Consistently defines fixed and sunk costs, and describes how instructors must teach under these definitions. (RLH)

Investigated high school students' levels of economic understanding using the Test of Economic Literacy. Students' scores were analyzed and compared to national averages. The subjects students understood best were currency exchange, competition, and types of economic systems. The subjects they understood least were market failures, inflation, and…

Search-theoretic models of monetary exchange are based on explicit descriptions of the frictions that make money essential. However, tractable versions of these models typically make strong assumptions that render them ill suited for monetary policy analysis. We propose a new framework, based on explicit micro foundations, within which macro…

The essay test has great potential to assess the higher levels of student understanding of economics. The problem is that most instructors fail to exploit the significant advantage of this testing method and to avoid its pitfalls. The author highlights the advantages and pitfalls to essay testing in economics and gives instructors many practical…

Financial crises seem to have become the norm rather than the exception since 1992. The author examines the impact of a crisis of confidence and resultant capital outflows from a small and open economy and the possible policy options in response to such outflows, using simple tools and definitions that will be familiar to any money and banking or…

The author describes a course designed to build the critical thinking skills of undergraduate economics students. The course introduces and uses game theory to study the Bible. Students gain experience using game theory to formalize events and, by drawing parallels between the Bible and common economic concepts, illustrate the pervasiveness of…

Following the analytical approach suggested in Campbell, the authors consider a baseline real-business-cycle (RBC) model with endogenous labor supply. They observe that the coefficients in the loglinear approximation of the dynamic equations characterizing the equilibrium are related to the fundamental parameters in a relatively simple manner.…