Comments on: How to Justify Teaching the Worst of Economics to Non-Economists /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/ A Critical Perspective On Development Economics Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:55:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Thoughts and Links for December 21, 2016 | J. W. Mason /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-84 Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:55:19 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-84 […] teach the worst?聽In a post at 黑料社区, New School grad student Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven forthrightly makes the case for teaching […]

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By: Gunjan Yogendra /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-75 Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:38:03 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-75 I am not an economics student or a practitioner. So pardon me for my lack of knowledge in understanding some of the terms mentioned here. But as an ever-learning professional, I am pretty curious to learn them, search for them, and find them and understand how they are used in practical terms. Basically because I want to understand how the world keeps working around them. And if I use my always-on-the-learning-curve skill, I might one day come up with a theory that really overwrites all the old theories in place. But then from a learning perspective, as well as a teaching perspective, and with so much history to go after and learn from, there’s only so much one can teach and one can learn. Perhaps, the instructors can do constant questioning to students in a very friendly way to understand their opinions, and come up with solutions and answers that not only helps them design the course better for future batches, but also helps current students appreciate the merit of learning economics history. Perhaps, they can divide the time between theory and practical cases, in a balanced way to really drive the point that some theories still do work and some now don’t. Perhaps, also drive the point in students, unconsciously, that when they graduate, it isn’t that the learning stops. What they learnt in class was only to equip them with tools so they can play around with them in their work life and real life. Pretty much like therapy.

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By: Luca Ravioli /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-74 Tue, 13 Dec 2016 03:19:10 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-74 I once decided to learn the basics of accounting and bookkeeping before reading any more economics (as tempting as it was.) I would encourage any one to do the same.

I found it quite interesting, useful, and profitable. It also is a great way to learn something of economics. I consider double entry bookkeeping or accounting an important part of a good education.and a basic per-requisit to economics. It is a very enlightening way to look at things.

It inoculates people from false economic assumptions such as equilibrium and the exclusion of levels or stocks, like wealth, and debt. Have you noticed most of the variables in the theories of beginning macroeconomics are flows or change in flows? It is hard to find a level from accumulated flows. Levels are important and exclusion their is incorrect. Even Q, on the horizontal axis of the supply and demand, curve graphs is a flow, not a stock of supply or demand quantity. It is [quantity]/[time period] not a quantity sitting around in various places. Yet if a huge quantity (inventory) was sitting around it would matter.

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By: Luca Ravioli /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-73 Tue, 13 Dec 2016 02:43:07 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-73 In reply to Luca Ravioli.

Corrections:
Why should any one take even one class of erroneous material? Learning a negative is a waste of precious youth!

It seems much better to learn accounting or bookkeeping. As it is much more valuable.

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By: Luca Ravioli /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-72 Tue, 13 Dec 2016 02:38:08 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-72 Why should any one even one class of erroneous material? Learning a negative is a waste of precious youth!

It seems much better to learn an accounting or bookkeeping. As it is much more valuable. And, they are involved in the measurement (empirical) part of almost every ordinations’, entities’, or persons’ economics. If one omits this from their learning, they are missing some thing very crucial to understanding how much of the world works.

The hurdle in the learning curve of double entry bookkeeping is how to use debit and credit. Learn Debit and Credit and the rest is easy.

(Accounting and Hindu-Arabic numerals probably arrived in Venice from India or through traders of Indian goods and ideas. India once had the larges GDP in the world.)

Here are links about two books that explain the above and might be motivation for taking learning double entry book keeping or accounting. The second one was mentioned in a reviewers discussion of the first book.

1st book

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Shaped the Modern World and How their
Invention could Make or Break thePlanet,
Reviewed by: Alan Sangster, Griffith University,

“The Bookkeeper Of Venice
When it first emerged, double-entry accounting was greeted like a great scientific discovery.”

The Venetian roots of modern finance
By the numbers
The beginning of savvy accounting

2nd book

“Whether building a road or fighting a war, leaders from ancient Mesopotamia to the present have relied on financial accounting to track their state鈥檚 assets and guide its policies. Basic accounting tools such as auditing and double-entry bookkeeping form the basis of modern capitalism and the nation-state. Yet our appreciation for accounting and its formative role throughout history remains minimal at best鈥攁nd we remain ignorant at our peril. The 2008 financial crisis is only the most recent example of how poor or risky practices can shake, and even bring down, entire societies.”

“In The Reckoning, historian and MacArthur 鈥淕enius鈥 Award-winner Jacob Soll presents a sweeping history of accounting, drawing on a wealth of examples from over a millennia of human history to reveal how accounting has shaped kingdoms, empires, and entire civilizations. The Medici family of 15th century Florence used the double-entry method to win the loyalty of their clients, but eventually began to misrepresent their accounts, ultimately contributing to the economic decline of the Florentine state itself. In the 17th and 18th centuries, European rulers shunned honest accounting, understanding that accurate bookkeeping would constrain their spending and throw their legitimacy into question. And in fact, when King Louis XVI鈥檚 director of finances published the crown鈥檚 accounts in 1781, his revelations provoked a public outcry that helped to fuel the French Revolution. When transparent accounting finally took hold in the 19th Century, the practice helped England establish a global empire. But both inept and willfully misused accounting persist, as the catastrophic Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008 have made all too clear.

A masterwork of economic and political history, and a radically new perspective on the recent past, The Reckoning compels us to see how accounting is an essential instrument of great institutions and nations鈥攁nd one that, in our increasingly transparent and interconnected world, has never been more vital.”

A quote from the book,

“Amsterdam also became the world center of accounting expertise. One poet later wrote that double-entry bookkeping was the secret to Dutch wealth:

This was the fam’d and quick invention, which
Made Venice, Genoa, and Florence rich:
The Low-Countries (in all senses such)
By this Art now speaks high and mighty Dutch.“

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By: Critical Blog on Development Economics – 黑料社区 /2016/07/31/how-to-justify-teaching-the-worst-of-economics-to-non-economists/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:52:58 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=51#comment-2 […] was chased down by Al Jazeera to serve as a discussant on a TV show with Easterly). My post on the dilemmas of teaching development economics hit home with a lot of academics and was shared more than 4000 times on social media. My recent […]

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