Here is an interview CBC did with Prof. Chris Ragan of McGill, Chair of the EcoFiscal Commission. There are great issues of negative externalities, and how people ignore the opportunity costs of being stuck in traffic. The question is, is it worth paying tolls if it buys us more time [...]
James Heckman (Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago) argues passionately that governments should pay (unusual for a Chicago economist!) for early childhood education.
Richard Koo (Chief Economist, Nomura Research Institute) did a 10 minute video in 2010 for the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) that is the clearest and most succinct, yet comprehensive, explanation of balance sheet recession. I have shown this video 10 times in different courses, and students are spellbound [...]
There is an engaging video about the noodle-shaving robots described in the Economics Out There on p. 66 of Economics for Life: Smart Choices for You? Besides being fun, it has some interviews in Chinese (with English subtitles) which have been popular with my Chinese-speaking students. Play the video and [...]
The best way to engage students with the abstract, mathematical techniques of game theory is to show the clip of the bar scene from A Beautiful Mind. This film about John Nash (based on the book by Sylvia Nasser) won the 2001 Oscar for Best Picture. Many students have [...]
This is an entertaining (?) SourceFed YouTube video about rising bacon prices caused by a drought that increased the price of pig feed.
As economists and teachers, what do we want our lasting “economic footprint” to be? There is a wonderful old Saturday Night Live skit by Father Guido Sarducci called “The Five Minute University.” His premise is to teach in five minutes what an average college or university graduate remembers five years after graduating. For economics, [...]
