A Sceptic's Comment on the Study of Economics

A survey was carried out among two groups of undergraduate economics students and four groups of students in mathematics, law, philosophy and business administration. The main survey question involved a conflict between profit maximisation and the welfare of the workers who would be fired to achieve it. Significant differences were found between the choices of the groups. The results were reinforced by a survey conducted among readers of an Israeli business newspaper and PhD students of Harvard. It is argued that the overly mathematical methods used to teach economics encourage students to lean towards profit maximisation. This research was motivated by my concern about the way economics is currently being taught in our universities. Students who come to us to Ôstudy economicsÕ instead become experts in mathematical manipulations. Furthermore, I suspect that their views on economic issues are influenced by the way we teach, perhaps without them even realising it. I am not the first to have realised this. A number of economists have already argued that the study of economics influences studentsÕ views and, in particular, makes them more selfish; see for example Frank et al. (1993, 1996), Frey et al.