First Ec10 class tomorrow! We'll start out with how four different economists defined economics. Starting with the classic Lionel Robbins: "the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."
Janet Yellen emphasizes that at the core of these alternative uses, especially in public policy, is promoting human well-being: "Economics is a subject that really relates to core aspects of human well-being, and there's a methodology for thinking about those things."
Our goal is not to tell students the answers to question but to teach them to think critically, thus Joan Robinson: "The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists."
Finally it is hard to look at an economics journal today, with research on everything from the Akkadian Empire to religious politics in modern Indonesia, and not have some sympathy for Jacob Viner's "Economics is what economists do."
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