Mankiw: A Course Load for the Game of Life - 經濟

Economic View
A Course Load for the Game of Life
By N. GREGORY MANKIW
Published: September 4, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/business/economy/05view.html?_r=1

AS a Harvard professor who teaches introductory economics, I have
the delightful assignment of greeting about 700 first-year students
every fall. And this year, I am sending the first of my own children
off to college. Which raises these questions: What should they be
learning? And what kind of foundation is needed to understand and be
prepared for the modern economy?


LEARN SOME ECONOMICS

You knew this was coming. Perhaps I am just trying to protect my
profession’s market share, but I hope it is more than that.

The great economist Alfred Marshall called economics “the study of
mankind in the ordinary business of life.” When students leave school,
“the ordinary business of life” will be their most pressing concern.
If the current moribund economy turns into a lost decade, as some
economists fear it might, it will be crucial to be prepared for it.

There may be no better place than a course in introductory economics.
It helps students understand the whirlwind of forces swirling around
them. It develops rigorous analytic skills that are useful in a wide
range of jobs. And it makes students better citizens, ready to
evaluate the claims of competing politicians.

For those who have left college behind, it is not too late to learn.
Pick up an economics textbook (mine would be a fine choice), and you
might find yourself learning more than you imagined.

Not convinced? Even if you are a skeptic of my field, as many are,
there is another, more cynical reason to study it. As the economist
Joan Robinson once noted, one purpose of studying economics is to
avoid being fooled by economists.


LEARN SOME STATISTICS

High school mathematics curriculums spend too much time on traditional
topics like Euclidean geometry and trigonometry. For a typical person,
these are useful intellectual exercises but have little applicability
to daily life. Students would be better served by learning more about
probability and statistics.

One thing the modern computer age has given everyone is data. Lots and
lots of data. There is a large leap, however, between having data and
learning from it. Students need to know the potential of number-
crunching, as well as its limitations. All college students are well
advised to take one or more courses in statistics, at least until high
schools update what they teach.


LEARN SOME FINANCE

With the rise of 401(k) plans and the looming problems with Social
Security, Americans are increasingly in charge of their own financial
future. But are they up to the task?

Few high school students graduate with the tools needed to make smart
choices. Indeed, many enter college without knowing, for instance,
what stocks and bonds are, what risks and returns these assets offer,
and how best to manage those risks.

The evidence of financial naïveté shows up every time some company
goes belly up. Whether it is Enron or Lehman Brothers, many company
employees are often caught with a large fraction of their wealth in
a single stock. They fail to heed the most basic lesson of finance —
that diversification provides a free lunch. It reduces risk without
lowering expected return.

College is an investment with a great return. The gap between the
wages of college graduates and those with only high school diplomas
is now large by historical standards. If those college grads are going
to manage their earnings intelligently, they need to study the
fundamentals of financial decision making.


LEARN SOME PSYCHOLOGY

Economists like me often pretend that people are rational. That is,
with mathematical precision, people are assumed to do the best they
can to achieve their goals.

For many purposes, this approach is useful. But it is only one way
to view human behavior. A bit of psychology is a useful antidote to
an excess of classical economics. It reveals flaws in human
rationality, including your own.

This is one lesson I failed to heed when I was in college. I never
took a single psychology course as an undergrad. But after the birth
of behavioral economics, which infuses psychology into economics, I
remedied that mistake. Several years ago, as a Harvard faculty member,
I audited an introductory psychology course taught by Steven Pinker.
I don’t know if it made me a better economist. But it has surely made
me a more humble one, and, I suspect, a better human being as well.


IGNORE ADVICE AS YOU SEE FIT

Adults of all stripes have advice for the college-bound. Those leaving
home and starting their freshman year should listen to it, consider it,
reflect on it but ultimately follow their own instincts and passions.

The one certain thing about the future is that it is far from certain.
I don’t know what emerging industries will be attracting college
graduates four years from now, and neither does anyone else. The next
generation will shape its own economy, as the young Bill Gates and
Mark Zuckerberg shaped ours. Those now packing up their clothes,
buying textbooks and meeting roommates hold the future in their hands.
Every year, when I look out over my 700 eager freshmen on that first
day of class, the view gives me optimism about the path ahead.


N. Gregory Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard.

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