Why economics textbooks must, and how they can, be changed into a real-world and pluralist economics. The example of a fundamentally new complexity-economics micro-textbook

Elsner, Wolfram (2016): Why economics textbooks must, and how they can, be changed into a real-world and pluralist economics. The example of a fundamentally new complexity-economics micro-textbook.

Abstract

We argue that economics must, and can, be taught in fundamentally different ways than the simplistic and ideology-laden “economics of x”. We illustrate this with a fundamentally new textbook, “Microeconomics of Complex Economies” (2015). The mainstream’s ambivalence between some relevant research and its simplistic teaching in terms of “optimum”, “equilibrium”, and “market”, and the resulting textbook structure, incoherent between the static and “optimal” equilibrium and some reference to more recent real-world phenomena, will be characterized. We show how this can be changed by showing the process of getting a “heterodox” complexity textbook published, and by the structure of its content.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: microeconomics; textbooks; teaching economics; heterodoxy; complexity economics; evolutionary economics; institutional economics; game theory; computational economics; history of economic thought.
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A11 - Role of Economics ; Role of Economists ; Market for Economists; A - General Economics and Teaching > A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics > A20 - General; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B0 - General > B00 - General; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C6 - Mathematical Methods ; Programming Models ; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling > C63 - Computational Techniques ; Simulation Modeling; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C70 - General; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D00 - General

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