Does the CORE textbook not go far enough?

As I noted in a post last year, Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) and Wendy Carlin (University College London) wrote an article that looked across modern economics principles textbooks, and argued for the CORE textbook The Economy (which is the book we use in my ECONS101 class) as an improvement. In their view, CORE 'teaches economics as if the last 30 years happened', rather than simply using the standard models that had been taught for decades prior. CORE represents a big shift in the focus of economics texts (which is part of the reason we use it in ECONS101). But does it go far enough?

In a recent article published in the journal Challenge (sorry I don't see an ungated version), John Komlos (University of Munich) argues that CORE stops short of the fulsome education he would like to see in economics principles. Komlos offers an exhaustive list of 49 additional topics or insights that he would like to see included. There are far too many for me to list or explain here, but some of the key ones include more coverage of political and economic power, more consideration of the sources and consequences of inequality, more on business practices (especially those that disadvantage the consumer) and oligopoly, more behavioural economics, more finance, more economic geography, more ecological economics, and more on the economics of information.

I have some sympathy for Komlos' views. However, there is one aspect of economics that he appears to be forgetting - scarcity. Economics principles is just one course in a student's degree. The textbook they encounter is just one textbook. There is limited lecturing and tutorial time that can be devoted to the range of topics that we might cover in a principles course. There is limited attention and study time that students can devote to reading a textbook. It is not reasonable to expect an economics principles text, or an economics principles course, to cover literally everything. Choices need to be made. If a course attempted to include all of the things that Komlos is arguing it should, then we have to ask, what is the opportunity cost of including those topics? That is, what content would be given up in order to spend more time extensively exploring the overlap between economics and political science, sociology, or geography? That isn't to say that those topics are not important, but the real question is, are those topics so important that they should squeeze something out of an already-packed curriculum?

It is easily possible to include some of Komlos' pet topics into introductory economics. My ECONS101 class includes a lot of the business economics that Komlos advocates. My ECONS102 class includes behavioural economics, the economics of information, inequality and redistribution. However, including the laundry list of additions simply wouldn't be possible across two courses, let alone a single principles course. I think what Komlos is really arguing for is a reconsideration of what is taught across the entire economics major, rather than just in principles. That would be more feasible.

However, there is one additional issue with what Komlos suggests. A lot of the topics he advocates for overlap with other social sciences, including political science, sociology, and geography. My students will know that I have no respect for disciplinary boundaries in my teaching, but adopting Komlos' approach would represent a clear move into economic imperialism, which may not be appreciated by our colleagues in the other social sciences. Komlos could well consider that economics students should receive some of these other perspectives from academics of those disciplines, but he doesn't make that clear. And students in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) programmes, to the extent that those programmes still exist, will be getting a lot of that content already.

So, what do we take away from this? The CORE textbook The Economy is an improvement on the existing textbooks. Komlos argues that it represents only half of a paradigm shift, and:

...is a further step in the evolution of - and toward a revolution in - economic thought.

I probably wouldn't go that far. But the textbook is at least one tool that we can use to ensure that students receive an economics education with modern features.

[HT: John Komlos]