Are economics graduates fit for purpose?

Finance minister George Osborne tweaked the central bank’s mandate two weeks ago, giving it stronger backing to continue ignoring inflation when it overshoots its target due to one-off factors, reports The Telegraph. But only a handful of economists polled by Reuters last week expect the central bank to add this month to the £375bn of government bonds it bought between March 2009 and October 2012.

Wendy Carlin, David Soskice, 25 October 2012Is economic teaching keeping up with the changing economy? This column presents a new way of teaching economics in light of the continuing crises. It argues that if we are to create a better-informed public debate we must begin by improving the economics curriculum and our students’ ability and their willingness to communicate about economic ideas and issues.Full Article: How should macroeconomics be taught to undergraduates in the post-crisis era?

Diane Coyle, 19 September 2012Five years after Lehman’s collapse, economics is under fire both from outside and inside the profession for irrelevance, arrogance and more. This column introduces a new Vox debate focused on two questions: What’s the use of economics, and how should we be teaching it to the next generation? Full Article: What’s the use of economics?

Diane Coyle, 3 December 2011Have economists been asleep at the wheel? This column reports from a conference on the psychology and economics of ‘scarce attention’. Among the ideas discussed is whether too much information can blind decision-making and whether this can explain why so many economists missed the warning signs of a crisis. Full Article: The invisible hand meets the invisible gorilla: Economics meets psychology

On Monday I launched my new column in Tax Notes, a specialized publication that only geeks and politicos who live and breathe tax policy would find appealing and worth the price of the subscription.  I, of course, love Tax Notes and have missed having access to it since my days on Capitol Hill.  Now I can read it again, by writing for it!

|Peter Boettke| Two facts --- students are taking longer to get their PhDs in economics, and students are dropping out of PhD programs before finishing.  Faced with these facts, Greg Mankiw reflects on the structure of graduate education and the role that MA programs can in fact play in improving graduate education in economics.

Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog.This post is a guest contribution by Dian Chu, market analyst, trader and author of the EconMatters blog.