Teaching Undergraduate Econometrics: Some Sensible Shifts to Improve Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Usefulness

Abstract

Building from Angrist and Pischke’s (2017) arguments for how the teaching of undergraduate econometrics could become more effective, I propose a further redesign that would better serve the vast majority of students. The rationale follows from several premises, most notably: (1) few students will become academics, in which they could search for randomness; (2) the conventional methods do not adequately prepare students to recognize biases and to properly interpret significance, insignificance, and p-values; and (3) there is an ethical problem in searching for significance and other matters. Based on these premises, I recommend large shifts in emphasis, new pedagogy, and adding important components (e.g., on interpretations and simple ethical lessons) that are largely ignored in current textbooks.