The author discusses the development of a unique course, The Economics of Online Dating. The course is an upper-level undergraduate course that combines intensive discussion, peer review, and economic theory to teach modeling skills to undergraduates. The course uses the framework of "online dating," interpreted broadly, as a point of…

Economics faculty expect that students have an integrated understanding of economic theory upon graduation and that they grasp and appreciate how all elements of markets naturally move to equilibrium. Through assessment activities, the authors discovered that their students were not developing that knowledge, so they turned to learning theory to…

In this article, the authors explore consensus among economists on specific propositions based on a fall 2011 survey of American Economic Association members. Results are based on 568 responses and provide evidence of changes in opinion over time by including propositions from earlier studies in 2000 (Fuller and Geide-Stevenson 2003) and 1992…

Adam Smith's moral philosophy can be used to introduce economics students to the important idea of transactions costs. The author provides a brief background in this article to Smith's moral philosophy and connects it to the costs of transacting in a way that fits easily into the standard principles of microeconomics classroom. By doing…

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…

The authors present suggestions by graduate students from a range of economics departments for improving the first-year core sequence in economics. The students identified a number of elements that should be added to the core: more training in building microeconomic models, a discussion of the methodological foundations of model-building, more…

The authors detail an urban economics experiment that is easily run in the classroom. The experiment has a flexible design that allows the instructor to explore how congestion, zoning, public transportation, and taxation levels determine the bid-rent function. Heterogeneous agents in the experiment compete for land use using a simple auction…

Recommends reviewing the 1958 debate between P. A. Samuelson and J. R. Minasian over the controversy involving tax-financed television versus pay-TV. This exercise is a lively way to introduce students to the issue of exclusionary devices for public goods. Includes graphical analysis and excerpts from the original debates. (MJP)

Describes an attempt to analyze and improve the connection between intermediate microeconomic theory courses and applied theory courses. Examines the data collection, policy analysis, program design, and materials production stages of this process. Includes a table of most-valued microeconomic skills compared with allocation of time to teach those…

Identifies four microeconomic concepts students should learn before entering the study of intermediate macroeconomics. Included are relative prices, general versus partial equilibrium, constrained optimization, and the nature of production concepts. Recommends making intermediate microeconomics a prerequisite for intermediate macroeconomics. (MJP)

Presents a brief classroom demonstration illustrating Bertrand price undercutting by outlining the experiment, discussing the game theory solution and experiences, and presenting related literatures. States that students remember the lesson because of the significant amounts of money each could have earned. (JEH)

States that often constant returns to scale are also much more and that many important results depend on the very special properties of this class of production function. Offers a unified set of simple proofs, employing only familiar diagrams and high school geometry, for most of the crucial analytical properties of constant returns production.…

Illustrates how, using introductory-level microeconomic models, an instructor can show various economic theorists' explanations of short run employment and output fluctuations. Identifies the competing schools of thought as old Keynesian, new Keynesian, and new Classical (which includes real business cycle theorists). Includes illustrative graphs…

Reconsiders Uriel Spiegel's analysis of the Giffen phenomenon, a utility function that yields an inferior good with an upward-sloping demand curve. Extends this to include similar utility functions that yield inferiority. Discusses the earlier work of related theorists including Liebhafsky, Vandermeulen, and Wold and Jureen. (MJP)

Reexamines Spiegel's analysis of the Giffen phenomenon, a utility function that yields an inferior good with an upward-sloping demand curve and incorporates Christian Weber's criticism into the model. Disagrees with Weber on some points but agrees that as income decreases the likelihood of the Giffen product decreases. (MJP)