ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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A great thing about EWoT is that it has gone through so many editions out, even though it is a textbook you can pick up an older edition quite cheaply.
I think my copy of the 11th edition* was $10 delivered, but I bet it can be found for even less.
*The 11th definitely has that forward.
Your story reminds me of a similar anecdote. Art Laffer used to start his classes at the University of Chicago business school with some complicated mathematical proof on the chalk board that he knew none of the class would understand-it was just to intimidate them and make sure they knew who was in charge. Well, one year someone in the back of the class raised his hand and in halting English-he was from the Dominican Republic-he told Art that he had made a mathematical error-and he had. Art was so humiliated he canceled class for the day.
Bruce,
Great story!
At least as important as Doug North eating crow is the fact that he actually cared about teaching, despite the incentive system of academia. That fact led to the extraordinarily serendipitous opportunity to hire Paul Heyne and support him in his commitment to a liberal arts approach to introductory economics education. I respect Doug North more for this decision than I do for the fact that he won a Nobel Prize and as much as the fact that he mainstreamed a focus on institutions in development economics.
Academia, like markets and government, is an incentive system in which most of the time agents act in accordance with their incentives. Thus academia suffers from "academic failure" in much the same way that markets suffer from "market failure" and government suffers from "government failure." North's commitment to pedagogical quality, despite the lack of incentives to have such a commitment, may well have changed history by means of giving Paul the years of experience in a sympathetic environment that led to "The Economic Way of Thinking."
Consider what history might have been like if the dominant introductory textbook in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s had been "The Economic Way of Thinking" instead of Samuelson's text.
I had Paul Heyne for my intro micro course 21 years ago. Possibly the best prof I had at UW (2 others could give him a run for the money). Truly a great teacher.
@Michael Strong,
Well put. I do think history would have been quite different.
Doug North had more time for undergraduate econ majors than for Popes and Presidents. I experienced it myself, and was amazed. We need more like him. He probably couldn't even get into a contemporary econ grad program though, and I'm sure he would tell you so.