The Economy Studies project emerged from the worldwide movement to modernise economics education, spurred on by the global financial crisis of 2008, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It envisions a wide variety of economics graduates and specialists, equipped with a broad toolkit, enabling them to collectively understand and help tackle the issues the world faces today. This is a practical guide for (re-)designing economics courses and programs. Based on a clear conceptual framework and ten flexible building blocks, this handbook offers refreshing ideas and practical suggestions to stimulate student engagement and critical thinking across a wide range of courses. Key features are:
- Adapting Existing Courses: Plug-and-play suggestions to improve existing economics courses with attention to institutions, history, values and practical skills.
- Teaching materials: A guide through the rapidly growing range of innovative textbooks and other teaching materials.
- Example Courses and Curricula: How to design pluralist, real-world economics education within the practical limits of time and resources. The companion website, www.economystudies.com, contains a wealth of additional resources, such as tailor-made booklets for more specific audiences, additional teaching materials and links to plug-and-play syllabi and courses, and opportunities for workshops and exchange with other economics educators.
Sam de Muijnck (MSc) works at the independent think tank Our New Economy. Previously, he co-founded the Dutch branch of Rethinking Economics, where he worked on 'Thinking like an Economist?', a quantitative analysis of all the economics bachelor programmes in the Netherlands. Joris Tieleman (PhD) works at the independent think tank Our New Economy. Previously, he co-founded the Dutch branch of Rethinking Economics, where he worked on 'Thinking like an Economist?', a quantitative analysis of all the economics bachelor programmes in the Netherlands.