MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS IN THE CLASSROOM
I am enrolled in a graduate microeconomics class which is almost entirely mathematical, though only at the level of elementary calculus. I am saddened by the experience. During the breaks, some students tell me it's just a hurdle for them to jump on their way to a degree. For them, perhaps the only harm done is the opportunity cost. What if, instead, they spent a semester applying Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson to present-day problems? Surely they would come away better able to think critically about vital current issues. But what bothers me most is the prospect that one or two bright students may enter a Ph.D. program and vanish into a black hole of mathematical esoterica. At their age, I would have been entranced by the cool properties of the Cobb-Douglas production function. would have heard the siren song loud and clear.