New Semester Begins --- Teaching Edition

I am teaching two courses this term --- Econ 880 -- Austrian Theory of the Market Process I --- and HNR 131 -- Contemporary Society in Multiple Perspectives.

You can read the syllabi here.

Comments

[Brian Pitt]

Maybe I should transfer to GMU in order to get a full dosage of Austrian ideas. Each time I look at one of your syllabi Dr. B., I see that your students will be discussing readings that I have read (or ones that I did not know about, and want to need to read)!

[Lode Cossaer]

Thanks for the course information. Helps me in my own Austrian Economics Education here at home. :)

Unfortunatly my home country - Belgium - doesn't have any courses on Austrian Economy, so we are required to do it with MES, HA & the others.

[DPrychitko]

(Pete, email me at your earliest opportunity!)

[matthew mueller]

Yes, the Austrian class looks very exciting. The topics look really great.

Do students usually write publishable papers in your class? Here is a suggestion: Why not put up the three best student papers on this blog for all of us to read? I would really like to see what your students are writing about on Austrian Economics. I am curious because this is an excellent syllabus.

[Peter Boettke]

Matt,

Great idea. The sample over the past 5 years would include the following:

Ed Stringham's paper on Hicks-Kaldor
Ben Powell on Japanese boom-bust
Virgil Storr on the embeddedness of markets in culture
Scott Beaulier on the resource curse and Botswana's economic 'miracle'
Chris Coyne on post-war reconstruction
Peter Leeson on the problem of social heterogeneity
Anthony Evans on the spread of market oriented ideas in Eastern Europe
Steve Miller on the economics of education and heurisitcs
Dan D'Amico on law and order in Ancient Athens

Now keep in mind that my class historically has been the Austrian II course, rather than this more foundational course. I am hoping that students in this class will work on more "pure" Austrian topics, such as imputation theory, capital theory, methodology, monetary theory, etc.

Anyway, I hope the students this year work hard and tackle tough questions in the Austrian tradition.

Pete

[Bogdan Enache]

The idea to discuss economic theory starting from novels is interesting. I would have chosen more challenging and influential literary works, however, like - for instance - Kafka's (unfinished) "America" for a discussion on homo economics, Proust's "In Search of the Lost Time" or Joyce's "Ulyses" for an interesting discussion regarding time and subjective value, Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" might serve well for a funny discussion on trade and Balzac's Father Goriot for discussing...savings? - I wonder how would such class might be like...In any case, I think the literature students would greatly appreciate it.