CORE Project

The Curriculum Open-Access Resources in Economics Project (CORE Project) is an organisation that creates and distributes teaching material for economics curriculum reform. Its textbook is taught as an introductory course at more than 100 universities. It provides its materials online, at no cost to users. It is registered as a charity[1] (CORE Economics Education) in England and Wales.

Origins

CORE was conceived in late 2012, by Professors Wendy Carlin of University college London and Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute, and Oscar Landerretche, who at that time was Director of the School of Economics and Business of the University of Chile[2]. At the time, Professor Carlin wrote to colleagues to suggest they collaborate to revise the curriculum, noting that "altering the course of the undergraduate curriculum is like turning around a half a million ton super tanker. But I think that the time may be right for the initiative I am inviting you to join me in proposing."[3]

Following the global economic crisis of 2008, students had formed groups, such as the International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics (ISIPE) and Rethinking Economics, to demand improvements to the mainstream economics curriculum. ISIPE, for example, argued that "teaching in economics departments is too narrowly focused and more effort should be made to broaden the curriculum"[4]. Professor Carlin has written that:

"The textbook model is definitely broken. In it, economic actors are amoral and self-interested, perfectly competitive market prices equate supply to demand implementing “optimal” outcomes, while environmental degradation, instability, and inequality are afterthoughts at best … Yet it continues as the backbone of much undergraduate teaching. However remote from what economists really do and the way we think, this is the “economics” imprinted on the public’s mind."[5]

Launched in October 2013 at HM Treasury[6], CORE said its mission was to address these issues by creating a textbook incorporating contributions from many academics with different points of view that was "humbler, more empirical and more topical".[7] Professor Carlin wrote that students "are embarrassed when they are no more able to explain the eurozone crisis or persistent unemployment than their fellow students in engineering or archaeology", and that CORE would ensure that "digital technology and interactive teaching methods will introduce students to an empirical discipline. They will learn to use evidence from history, experiments and other data sources to test competing explanations and policies."[8]

Course material

CORE's courses are offered through open access online ebooks published on its web site. Its ebooks use a Creative Commons license[3] so that "any user can customize, translate, or improve it for their own use or the use of their students."[3]

The Economy

The Economy was designed as the source material for taught courses in the first year of an undergraduate degree, although it has also been used in schools, and for advanced courses in public policy. In 2017, a print version of The Economy was published by Oxford University Press.[9]

Economy, Society and Public Policy (ESPP)

In 2018, CORE posted the first units of ESPP, an ebook designed to introduce the economics to non-specialists, particularly students from outside economics courses who were taking economics as a minor. Like The Economy, it focuses on topics such as inequality, power, and environmental economics. ESPP is funded by the Nuffield Foundation.[10]

Doing Economics

Also in 2018, CORE posted the first beta units of Doing Economics, a collection of empirical projects designed to teach quantitative methods in economics using real-world data, also funded by the Nuffield Foundation.[10]

Structure and contributors

CORE Economics Education is registered as a charity in England and Wales, with a board of trustees.[1]

The day-to-day running of the project is based at University College London. The course and support materials have been created by academic economists who volunteer their time, including Yann Algan (Sciences Po, Paris), Timothy Besley (London School of Economics), Diane Coyle (University of Manchester), Cameron Hepburn (University of Oxford), and Kevin O’Rourke (University of Oxford).[11]

The steering group is Wendy Carlin (University College London), Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute), Margaret Stevens (head of the Department of Economics, University of Oxford), and Oscar Landerretche, the president of Codelco. In 2017, CORE USA, based at Barnard College, was set up to improve outreach in the US.[12]

Other prominent economists have contributed to the published material[13], including Nobel laureates James Heckman, Alvin Roth and Joseph Stiglitz, who recorded videos for it on inequality in education, matching markets and the financial crisis.

Funding

CORE funds its projects through grants. Startup funding was provided by the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Current Funders include the Nuffield Foundation, HM Treasury, Friends Provident Foundation, The Bank of England, and the International Economic Association.[14]

Differences from existing economics teaching

CORE's authors claim that popular textbooks such as Principles of Economics by Greg Mankiw are little different in content to the first modern text book, Economics by Paul Samuelson, which was published in 1948.[15], meaning that these textbooks have ignored many of the innovations in economics since then:

"What we teach [students] in our intro classes bears little resemblance to how we do economics ourselves. The great mid-20th century thinkers – John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, and John Nash – initiated a process that eventually transformed how we now understand the economy, in three ways. Only one of these [Keynes] made it into today's principles course."[15]

CORE argues that concepts developed in the second half of the 20th century, such as asymmetric information, strategic social interactions and incomplete contracts should be given greater prominence in undergraduate teaching. It claims that in most universities these ideas are "mentioned, if at all, at the end of the introductory course, or as special topics."[15]

Critical reception

The Economy has been received favourably. The Economist wrote that "[e]arly results are promising":

The Economy does not dumb down economics; it uses maths readily, keeping students engaged through the topicality of the material. Quite early on, students have lessons in the weirdness in economics—from game theory to power dynamics within firms—that makes the subject fascinating and useful but are skimmed over in most introductory courses.[16]

In The New Yorker, John Cassidy wrote that "The members of the core team deserve credit for responding to the critics of economics without pandering to them."[17] The Times Higher Education Supplement called the course "a bold revamp" and wrote that taking CORE in year 1 had improved results in year 2 for students at University College London:

The proportion of students gaining a first in the second-year microeconomics module rose from 22 per cent in 2014-15 to 32 per cent in 2015-16, while the proportion awarded third-class honours fell from 28 per cent to 11 per cent. ... In macroeconomics, the proportion gaining firsts was unchanged, but the number who attained a 2:1 rose from 21 per cent in 2014-15 to 36 per cent in 2015-16."[18]

Criticism of approach

Some curriculum reform campaigners have criticised CORE for being too narrow and prescriptive, and not acknowledging competing schools of thought. Daniel Lapedus, the Rethinking Economics welcomed CORE’s "incorporation of a variety of thinkers in their curriculum, as well as their efforts to make economics more real and engaging for economics students ... But real critical pluralism that reflects the true diversity of real-world perspectives is still a long way off. There is plenty more rethinking yet to be done."[19]

Yuan Yang, one of the founders of Rethinking Economics, told The Financial Times that:

“Core is not a pluralist curriculum ... It presents one paradigm, while students should be able to choose among different schools of thought.”[20]

Universities adopting CORE

Universities who are using CORE include:[21]

Publications

CORE Team, The (2017). The Economy, Economics for a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[9]

The CORE Project web site

References

  1. 1 2 "CORE Economics Education". The Charity Commission. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  2. ↑ "Oscar Landerretche". Institute for New Economic Thinking. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  3. 1 2 3 "The CORE Project". rajivsethi.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  4. ↑ Inman, Philip (4 May 2014). "Economics students call for shakeup of the way their subject is taught". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  5. ↑ Carlin, Wendy. "How a new economics syllabus is preparing students for the real-world economy". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  6. ↑ Johnson, Rob. "Institute for New Economic Thinking Launches Project to Reform Undergraduate Syllabus". Institute for New Economic Thinking. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  7. ↑ "'Dismal science' seeks fresh thinking after failure in crisis". Financial Times. 2013-11-11. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  8. ↑ Carlin, Wendy (17 November 2013). "Economics explains our world – but economics degrees don't". Financial Times. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  9. 1 2 CORE Team, The (15 November 2017). The Economy, Economics for a Changing World. p. 1000. ISBN 9780198810247. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Economy, Society and Public Policy - new course from coreecon | Nuffield Foundation". www.nuffieldfoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  11. ↑ "Contributors - CORE". CORE. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  12. ↑ "CORE USA - CORE". CORE. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  13. ↑ "Contributors - CORE". CORE. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  14. ↑ "Funders - CORE". CORE. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  15. 1 2 3 Bowles, Samuel; Carlin, Wendy (2017-09-07). "A new paradigm for the introductory course in economics". VoxEU.org. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  16. ↑ Economist, The (21 September 2017). "The teaching of economics gets an overdue overhaul". Free Exchange. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  17. ↑ Cassidy, John (2017-09-11). "A New Way to Learn Economics". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
  18. ↑ "Students thrive thanks to 'Freakonomics revamp' of economics". Times Higher Education (THE). 2017-01-05. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
  19. ↑ "Will the real rethinkers please stand up? - New thinking for the British economy". www.opendemocracy.net. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
  20. ↑ Guigliano, Ferdinando (10 April 2015). "Students weigh the value of new economics course". The Financial Times. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  21. ↑ "Universities using CORE - CORE". CORE. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  22. ↑ Phillips, Tim (5 June 2018). "Inspiration for the future in Afghanistan". The CORE Project. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
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