Filetype PDF | Posted on 02 Jan 2023 | 2 years ago
Authentication
digital resources
118x Filetype PDF File size 0.07 MB Source: publications.azimpremjifoundation.org
CORE’S ECONOMICS TEXTBOOK
A Better Economics for sub-disciplines of microeconomics and
macroecono mics in the economic cur-
the Indian Context riculum. This framing helped establish
the view of the market economy as a
self-equilibrating system with some fail-
ures—externalities, insuffi cient public
Amit Basole, Arjun Jayadev goods, and occasional demand short-
falls—all of which could be addre ssed
Refl ecting on their experience of aul A Samuelson, the Nobel Lau- by appropriate intervention. This ap-
using The Economy to teach reate in economics, once said, “I proach is now standard, and almost all
undergraduate students in India, Pdon’t care who writes a nation’s textbooks have the same formula (for
two teachers of economics discuss laws—or crafts its advanced treatises— example, best-selling textbooks such as
if I can write its economics textbooks.” Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Econo-
the need for a version of the He was right about the greater mics) adding updates from more mod-
alternative textbook that addresses long-term impact of being a framer of ern research as an afterthought.
the needs of students who seek to minds. Samuelson’s famous textbook, Thus, we have the following rough
understand the Indian economy. Economics (1948) created a paradigm sequence almost everywhere: the idea
which formed the cornerstone of millions of scarcity, the theory of the consumer,
The possibilities of such a version of people’s understanding of economics the theory of the fi rm (more appropri-
of the textbook are discussed. across the world for decades. From its ately termed the theory of the plant),
fi rst edition in 1948, it made sense of market failures and public goods, na-
economics to newcomers and provided tional income acco unting, infl ation,
Sections of this article appeared in “Towards a a framing that remains the standard for output, and ending with fi scal and mon-
Better Economics Curriculum,” by A Jayadev preliminary education in the subject. etary policy.
(Mint, 21 September 2017). Samuelson brought together in one In India generations of students have
Amit Basole (amit.basole@apu.edu.in) and text the insights of Marshallian micro- been brought up on these texts and this
Arjun Jayadev (arjun.jayadev@apu.edu.in) teach economics and Keyne sian aggregate sequence. As a rough rule, in our con-
economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. demand and broadly consolidated the versations we have found that about
26 JUNE 16, 2018 vol lIiI no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
CORE’S ECONOMICS TEXTBOOK
seven out of 10 college faculty use case) special topics for a third-year Throughout, it incorporates relevant
Mankiw or a similar textbook in their in- course in economic development. insights from other disciplines, including
troductory course which follows the afore- psychology, sociology, history, legal stu-
mentioned sequence. Using The Economy dies, anthropology, biology, and ecology
In our view, this is a pity because it is At Azim Premji University, these twin and philosophy. These in turn suggest a
increasingly recognised that the stand- considerations loomed large as we atte- complex and nuanced understanding of
ard approach, while perhaps reasonable mpted to reimagine three years ago what economic behaviour, in which human
as a goal for launching a typical under- an introductory undergraduate course in interactions involve bounded rationality,
graduate curriculum, does little to help economics ought to look like. At the out- reciprocity, adherence to norms, and a
understand the economy that the stu- set, we decided to support and adopt The concern for justice and an embedding in
dents observe. Both educators and more Economy which was still being written society; a far cry from the “rational eco-
importantly students in the West have when we began. The textbook is written nomic man” of standard textbooks.
realised that the standard economics by 20 economists from all over the world The Economy is more international
education available in countries such as and directed by Wendy Carlin from the and its digital format allows greater
the United States (US) and the United University College London, Samuel Bow les fl exibility and adaptability. Furthermore,
Kingdom (UK) not only did not equip from Santa Fe Institute, and Margaret it is designed to be taught as a one-year
them with the tools to understand the Stevens from University of Oxford, and course and is not neatly divisible into a
great recession of 2008, it also ruled out seeks to create a new paradigm for intro- typical “Introduction to Microecono-
the possibility of alternative frame- ductory economics. mics” and “Introduction to Macroeco-
works. By setting up an exercise in intel- One reason for this attempt is that the nomics” (although this can be done).
lectual mastery of a set of theoretical standard textbooks fail to refl ect many There are separate units on the growth
constructs rather than a robust engage- advances in economics over the last few of capitalism, the functioning of banks
ment with the messy and changing decades which taken together create a and credit, on the international econo-
economy they saw, students were often much more complex vision of the func- my, on inequality, environmental concerns
left with a sense of bewilderment as the tioning of the economy than the para- and distribution and so on, all with a
economic world crashed around them. digmatic Samuelsonian approach. Many clear underlying analytic framing.
Groups such as Rethinking Economics of these are central to the understanding But, while all of this makes it a far
were born out of this malaise and have of the limitations of market-based econ- sup erior alternative to conventional eco-
grown much stronger since that time. omies and are key to modern theories nomics textbooks, there is more work
While it is understandable that Indian which seek to explain events such as the that can be done to make it even better
students did not have an equivalent global fi nancial crisis. These include the suited for our purpose. Currently, we
sense of discomfort given that the epi- centrality of imperfect contracts and fi nd that it is best to supplement The
centre of the crisis were the Organisa- imperfect information in limiting the Economy with the very good material
tion for Economic Co-operation and ability of markets to allocate resources from Indian books such as G Omkar-
Development economies, there is at least effi ciently, the understanding that self- nath’s Economics: A Primer for India (2012)
one way in which they too might be interested strategic interactions among or Errol D’Souza’s Macroeconomics (2009)
rightly incensed by their introductory agents can lead to socially undesirable which provides greater institutional de-
education. Economics is often taught as outcomes, as well as the comprehension tail for our students. We are attempting
being a context-less, ahistorical disci- that endogenous money, feedback effects to create a South Asian version of The
pline in which the basic and most im- and leverage can lead to dramatic vola- Economy that engages more fully with
portant tools and examples through tility and fi nancial crashes. the lived realities and features of the econ-
which to analyse economic life are uni- The Eco nomy in contrast to the stand- omy here. While the basic structure and
versal, and which can be applied across ard app roach attempts to address these much of the content will remain the same,
contexts without concern. In practice and re-e ngages (in modern terms) with we hope to be able to make a few chang-
this often means that texts refl ect the classical concerns surrounding distribu- es that align perhaps more closely with
reality of the US or UK economy, rather tion, confl ict and social order that has some of the key concerns that may be
than that of any other place in the motivated economics from its begin- specifi c. We aim to do this in a few ways.
world. Unlike in the West, however, ning. The text focuses on pressing eco- First, we plan to use meaningful
Indian students ought to be deeply nomic problems such as unemployment, narratives from the Indian context to il-
conversant and analytically at ease with instability, inequality, environmental luminate economic concepts. Thus, for
issues such as informality, structural sustainability, and develops modern an- example, most introductory courses
transformation, planning, liberalisa- alytical tools required to understand teach the basic model of labour supply
tion, dual economies, caste and gender these. It does this while paying enor- wherein workers trade off between
inequalities, and urbanisation that per- mous attention to history, institutions, work and leisure. But, this same labour
vade their own lived experience from and experiments that illuminate these supply decision can be richly illustrated
the outset rather than as (is the current topics and places them in context. in the context of women’s labour force
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 16, 2018 vol lIiI no 24 27
CORE’S ECONOMICS TEXTBOOK
participation in India. Unlike in devel- as a set of puzzles to master. This is not a understand lectures around the process
oped economies, in India women do not surprise at all given the limitations we of money creation (for example by
choose only between paid work outside have described earlier. Chowdhury 2013) after having done the
the home and unpaid work at home. relevant chapters in the section on
They also participate extensively in the What We Saw So Far money. This has made engagement with
economy as unpaid workers in market For us, using The Economy has been a current debates far more sophisticated
operations (such as farming or home- successful experiment so far. It has and embedded than might be expected
based industry) or work for money as hel ped students simultaneously obtain from a simple introductory textbook–
piece-rate workers at home. We can the tools of economic thinking while level of engagement.
int roduce the analytical framing of the retaining interest in the real world and The foregrounding of the political pre-
standard labour supply model with an indeed becoming more engaged over sumptions and considerations of questions
actual example from fi eldwork in Varanasi time in a wide range of interests that of fairness in the book gave space to a
undertaken by one of us (Basole 2016) to really befi t the notion of becoming third-year student who became intere sted
discuss the choices and cons traints facing “worldly philosophers.” in those concerns and who then wrote an
women in undertaking paid work or A few examples of the textbook’s honours thesis on the liberal philosophical
caring labour. This also allows us to success may be useful. underpinnings of markets and criticisms
introduce students early on to tools such One student currently in the second thereof, drawing from diverse readings
as time-use surveys. year became very interested in the issue ranging from political philosophy to
Second, wherever possible, we aim to of debt dynamics that is described in the information theory to psychology, and
expose students to actual Indian data section on fi scal policy. The chapter makes including direct engagement with the
right from the outset. The Economy pro- the obvious, but critical, point that debt original work of such thinkers as Niccolò
vides over 200 data sets to learn about rises not only because of borrowing but Machiavelli, Albert Hirschmann, Michael
real world data and we hope to supple- also because real interest rates grow Sandel, Debra Satz, Kenneth Arrow,
ment these in the South Asian version. faster than real gross domestic product Elizabeth Anderson, Eva Kittay, Gerd
Third, we hope to expose students to (GDP) growth rates. This interest in under- Gigerenzer, Herbert Simon, Joan Robinson
some aspects of thinking in India about standing the basic mechanics allowe d him and others.
the issues raised in The Economy. Thus, to engage with the N K Singh Committee Again, these are unusually high levels
for example, while Lionel Robbins’s prin- report and their aims at maintaining debt of sophistication and engagement for
ciple of scarcity and the preference for stability, an example of a very live debate. undergraduate students in India. While
growth is embedded in most textbooks, In doing so, the student noticed that the aforementioned are some striking
India has a rich tradition that contests there were several concerns (for example, examples, it is certainly the case that
this framing. Gandhian and other per- that the debt stability target of 60% debt almost all our students have been simi-
spectives which have different norma- to GDP ratio implied procylicality of the larly inspired. Some of this has been
tive underpinnings continue to play a defi cit and so on). As a result, the student bec ause the foundation allows us a more
part in our polity and society. While an is doing an honours thesis using a Python robust and broad engagement with the
introductory course in economics cannot programme simulating state and centre materials in the second and third years
cover such material in detail, it is impor- debts and the joint role of monetary policy of an undergraduate programme. There
tant for students to be able to be exposed and fi scal policy in this regard. are no reasons other Indian students
to these alternative visions. A now third-year student became would not also benefi t greatly, especially
Fourth, and perhaps most diffi cult, we interested in the problem of spontane- if such an approach can be made more
hope to be able to embed material that is ous social order that arises from strate- contextually appropriate.
critical to understand the Indian eco- gic inter actions described in the sections However, some potential adopters
nomy but which is not emphasised in on games earlier in the book. She used may balk at choosing The Economy. In
The Economy. Examples might include this as a springboard to create an agent- some cases, this may be for principled
dualism, informality, structuralist under- based model of caste dynamics that al- reasons (for example, some may prefer
standings of infl ation, and of course the lowed new insights into the persistence to use a “pluralist” approach, whereby
historical trajectory of modern India. of caste. paradigms compete as an “Introduction
In our opinion, the performance and A group of three, now third-year to Economics” or with other disagree-
evolution of the economy as a subject students, inspired by the inherent ideas ments about presentations). In other
fascinates students. Consider for example of evolution and persistent social or- cases, there may be pragmatic consider-
the hugely positive response to Arvind ders, worked on creating a model of ations of how to sequence material.
Subramanian’s yeoman efforts to make caste persistence using an evolutionary But these are likely to be very few. For
the Economic Survey accessible to stu- game from previous work by Kaushik the most part, we suspect that the
dents. At the same time, however, they Basu (2017). biggest impediment to switching to a
are quickly bored by the standard text- Our students in “Money and Banking” more engaging and up-to-date approach
book approach and treat the curriculum and in other classes can more easily (whether through The Economy or any
28 JUNE 16, 2018 vol lIiI no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
CORE’S ECONOMICS TEXTBOOK
other set of materials) is because of habit the economic world. But, the purpose of Wor kers in Urban India, S Raju and S Jatrana
and inertia. It requires re-tooling and an economics education is to create a (eds), Cambridge University Press.
re-engagement on the part of instructors better-informed polity that can effec- Basu, Kaushik (2017): “Discrimination as Focal
Point: Markets and Group Identity,” Forum for
who currently run on a standard set of tively engage in these complex under- Social Economics, Vol 46, No 2, pp 128–32.
practices that are easily replicated eve- standings. It is possible, we believe, to Chowdhury, A K (2013): “‘Loans First’: Explaining
Money Creation by Banks,” Macroscan, http://
rywhere. But from a pedagogical view- have a better approach. www.macroscan.net/index.php?&view=article
point this is a mistake. The status quo &aid=1623.
Jayadev, A (2017): “Towards a Better Economics
short-changes our students and does lit- References Curriculum,” Mint, 21 September, https://
tle to ensure that they remain engaged www.livemint.com/Opinion/TOy9ynIjY-
Basole, A (2016): “Spare Change for Spare Time? FazZmVat0aGcN/Towards-a-better-econom-
and vitally interested in understanding Homeworking Women in Banaras,” Women ics-curriculum.html.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 16, 2018 vol lIiI no 24 29
no reviews yet
Please Login to review.
