Pluralism in economics teaching – Why and how?

Gilles Raveaud, August 2009

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Summary :

One of the reasons the textbooks are a scandal is that they omit basic

aspects of the world, such as the environment, power relationships,

the role of organisations and institutions, or the existence of inequalities.

This may sound hard to believe – and it is. But what is worse is

that, as a student, you get used to it. At the beginning, you ask questions,

but after having heard dozens of times that ‘this is an interesting

question, but we will deal with it later on’, and that ‘later on’

never comes, you give up. You learn some fancy models, you run a

few econometric exercises, you grasp a few facts in passing – but you

are still unable to reply to your friends’ questions about current economic

issues.