• Fritz Johannes

The history of economic thought is a history of debates about how to make sense of the world. For every socio-economic question you will find thoughtful economists taking fundamentally contradictory positions. In this course, we will use the history of economic thought to practice our own argumentative skills. We will use current issues as springboards to launch us into the best arguments made about their significance for making sense of the world. By witnessing the opposing arguments of historic thinkers, we build the healthy habit of deeply understanding both sides of an issue before drawing our personal conclusions.

Among the issues we are going to discuss are the (un-)desirability of market-based economies, equitable participation in economic growth, money and central banks, the role of the state in recessions, and more. The cast of thinkers includes Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Robinson, Hayek, Coase, Hirschman, Lange, Friedman, Kahneman, Tversky and Roth, among others.

The history of economic thought provides the narrative to abstract economic equations. The goal of this course is to convey the different worldviews of four prominent yet conflicting schools of economic thought. The participants develop an understanding of the patterns underlying public discourse on economic topics and practice their own argumentation.

The course evaluation format rewards you for practicing your argumentative skills as you increase your knowledge of economic thought. While active participation in class is truly appreciated, it is not expected that students practice debating in public. Instead, students will engage with the material through written take-home assignments and a written synthesis.

Individual take-home assignments on the reading material constitute 80% of the final grade. Students are required to submit 5 take-home assignments throughout the semester. Assignments are offered every week and students can choose freely which ones to submit. The common assignment contains three questions with the first two exploring different sides of the week’s issue and the third question geared towards debating opposing views. The expected length of the answers is a total of 1-2 pages per assignment. Only assignments turned in before class starts are counted as submitted. Each on-time submission will be graded. Submitting more than 5 assignments is allowed. The final homework grade is the average over the 3 most highly graded submissions.

The written synthesis contributes the remaining 20% of the final grade. The written synthesis is an argumentative essay with a length of about 5 pages in which students demonstrate their topical knowledge and argumentative skills. The topic for the synthesis will be offered by the instructor in early December and the submission date be agreed-to in class.

Prüfungsdauer 15 Minuten

Nur als Prüfungswiederholung