Russ Roberts’ EconTalk episode on my new book is out. In a world that prized substance as well as style, Russ would be the household name.
For me, the highlight was trying to convince Russ of the great value of objective testing. If you’re teaching something existing tests can’t detect, write a better test! But if you’re teaching something no conceivable test can detect, you probably aren’t teaching anything at all.
Thanks again to Russ for a thrilling interview!
Feb 15 2018
Donna Borak of CNN Money interviewed me early in February for her piece on outgoing Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.The piece is "Yellen's historic legacy: Wise caution and a successful recovery," CNN Money, February 3, 2018. Here's the one sentence she used, which is right at the end of the article: "Time won't te...
Feb 14 2018
For some reason, I didn't know about co-blogger Bryan Caplan's bet about gasoline prices with Tyler Cowen, but if I had, I would have taken his side of the bet. Here's why. Notice Tyler's argument, in Bryan's words: Why was Tyler so dismissive? As far as I can understand, he thinks that basic arbitrage theory implie...
Feb 14 2018
Russ Roberts' EconTalk episode on my new book is out. In a world that prized substance as well as style, Russ would be the household name. For me, the highlight was trying to convince Russ of the great value of objective testing. If you're teaching something existing tests can't detect, write a better...
READER COMMENTS
Rajat
Feb 14 2018 at 7:17pm
I’m not an academic, but I use my (undergraduate) economics degree as an industry economist nearly every day – and I remember a fair bit of at least the key intuition and takeaways about the various basic models I was taught from 25 years ago. Is your main point that 90% of the workforce does not fall into this category?
Dan D
Feb 15 2018 at 10:27am
@Rajat I am a CPA, and the coursework I did in college is highly relevant to my day to day job. However, the four years I spent in college could have easily been turned into one year of intensive study of accounting and finance, with the CPA exam waiting for me at the end of that year. And ultimately so much of what I do as a professional accountant was developed on the job. Upshot, how much does one year of additional study add value compared to a year as CPA on the job?
Point being – even if some coursework is relevant, it doesn’t justify the four year slog from a human capital perspective, even when college majors are relevant to careers. I.e. even in the hard case of majors relevant to careers, much of it is a “waste of time and money.” (to borrow from Dr. Caplan’s new book!).
robc
Feb 15 2018 at 10:43am
Dan D,
Agreed. I think my engineering degree is on the high end of human capital, and it is maybe 50%.
Amy Willis
Feb 15 2018 at 11:27am
We also posted some questions for thought at EconTalk, including pressing Bryan’s issue of testing, here: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/02/learning_how_no.html
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