Faculty often report limited student engagement in their economics courses. This deficiency makes it challenging for educators to excite students about our field, a situation that could have ripple effects in terms of the number of students who graduate as economics majors. For students, the lack of classroom engagement makes it unappealing to…

The authors of this article demonstrate best practices for creating belonging in economics, which allows diverse students to feel respected and accepted within the discipline. Opportunities to connect with economics allow students to understand and be empowered by the value they add to the classroom. The suggested practices thus include providing…

This article's authors use student transcript data to identify differences in the study of economics among Black students at HBCUs and PWIs. The data show that a higher fraction of Black students at HBCUs initially intend to study economics, relative to those at PWIs (4.0% vs. 1.3% of micro principles enrollees) and persist in the major (9.4% vs.…

The authors of this article introduce a database of scholarship among liberal arts college (LAC) economists. Capturing publications across the life cycle, the data speak to questions unexplored in existing work and point to answers often contrary to popular wisdom. First, limited evidence of a rising tenure bar is found. Moreover, while some claim…

Economics has a well-documented problem with diversity. Literacy-targeted (LT) courses designed for a broader spectrum of students have the potential to help address the underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minorities in the discipline. The authors of this article explore how, by using the LT approach, introductory economics instructors…

The author of this article summarizes which, when, where, and how students take introductory economics. Among students who began college in 2012, 74 percent never took economics, up from 62 percent in 2004. Fifteen percent of beginning college students in 2012 took "some economics," and 12 percent were "one-and-done" students.…

Using the backward design model, the author of this article surveys and connects the economic competencies literature evolving from Hansen with the literature on literacy-targeted principles courses. He makes the case why departments should offer LT principles courses--which focus on higher-level mastery of a shorter list of concepts that students…

In this randomized controlled trial with controls for student characteristics, the authors used a loss-aversion strategy to test whether students achieve greater learning gains from combining research-based instructional strategies with loss aversion. Students in the control group began the class with no grades and built their course average by…

The authors of this study investigate the likely influence of required or voluntary financial education on the saving behaviors of U.S. adults. They compare the results for three groups defined by different life experiences with financial education (required, voluntary, and none). Probit models estimate the effects of financial education on four…

The authors adapted a lab-in-the-field experiment emulating the dynamic extraction of a fishery to create a Web-based classroom experiment. The game includes a multi-player version analogous to an open-access problem and a single-player version analogous to the social planner problem. This game is helpful in introductory microeconomics courses to…

The author describes an assignment in an undergraduate game theory course in which students work together in class to develop a computer algorithm to identify Nash equilibria. This assignment builds basic computer science skills while applying game theory knowledge to real-world situations. Students work as a team to delineate the steps and write…

Past survey evidence shows little change in how economists teach, but the pandemic forced change upon faculty. This survey investigates what that change looked like, whether faculty feel that the changes were for the better or worse for themselves and their students, and what changes faculty will continue post-pandemic.

Incorporating writing into an economics course is a beneficial goal of economic educators. The potential benefits of using writing to enhance learning among economics students have been emphasized in the literature. Writing to Learn (WTL) is an act of using writing activities to help students think through key concepts presented in a course. The…

The COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary for instructors to innovate, and some of the innovations will persist and be refined post-pandemic. An economics elective at Claremont McKenna College provides examples. Innovations likely to persist include replacing in-class exams with context-rich assignments and conducting a set of student presentations…

The authors of this article propose a simple exercise of monopoly pricing to illustrate complex theoretical results on the welfare effects of group pricing. By exposing students to this exercise, they aim to bridge a gap between the standard textbook analysis of group pricing and more general results in the literature and clarify some students'…