A Pareto-Improving Way to Teach Principles of Economics: Evidence from the University of Toronto

摘要

Of the 40 percent of US college students who take a principles course, only a small fraction become economics majors.1 While most students never take another economics course, principles courses and textbooks are largely designed to provide majors with concepts and tools needed in upper-level courses. The "literacy targeted" (LT) approach to teaching principles argues that it is more valuable for students to be able to apply core economic concepts well than to be exposed to a wide range of concepts they will soon forget. The LT approach focuses on a short list of core concepts that students can use for the rest of their lives (Hansen, Salemi, and Siegfried 2002).