Marianne Johnson

Basic Math Skills and Performance in an Introductory Economics Class.

The authors measure math skills with a broader set of explanatory variables than have been used in previous studies. To identify what math skills are important for student success in introductory microeconomics, they examine (1) the students score on the mathematics portion of the ACT Assessment Test, (2) whether the student has taken calculus, (3) whether the student has been required to take remedial mathematics, and (4) the students score on a test of very basic mathematical concepts. All four measures have significant effects in explaining performance in an introductory microeconomics course. The authors find similar results, regardless of whether they use self-reported information from students or official administrative records from the university. The results suggest that improvements in student performance may depend on improved mastery of basic algebra.

Basic Math Skills and Performance in an Introductory Statistics Course.

We identify the student characteristics most associated with success in an introductory business statistics class, placing special focus on the relationship between student math skills and course performance, as measured by student grade in the course. To determine which math skills are important for student success, we examine (1) whether the student has taken calculus or business calculus, (2) whether the student has been required to take remedial mathematics, (3) the students score on a test of very basic mathematical concepts, (4) student scores on the mathematics portion of the ACT exam, and (5) science/reasoning portion of the ACT exam. The score on the science portion of the ACT exam and the math-quiz score are significantly related to performance in an introductory statistics course, as are student GPA and gender. This result is robust across course formats and instructors. These results have implications for curriculum development, course content, and course prerequisites.

Gender, Expectations, And Grades In Introductory Microeconomics At A Us University

Previous studies have documented a gender gap in the study of economics in Canada, the UK, and the US. One important factor may be womens low expectations about their ability to succeed in economics courses. Women in our sample expect to do less well than men in an introductory microeconomics course, even after controlling for variables relating to family background, academic experience, and mathematics experience. These expectations are partly self-fulfilling, since expected grades have an important and positive effect on class performance. We also find that having taken an economics course in secondary school actually has a negative effect on performance. We observe this negative effect for women and men, but it is more pronounced for women. When we control for both expectations and secondary-school experience with economics, the independent effect of gender is small and insignificant.

JAMES M. BUCHANAN, CHICAGO, AND POST-WAR PUBLIC FINANCE

This paper examines James Buchanan’s earliest writings within the context of post-WWII public finance theory and his education at Chicago. Public choice scholars have long recognized their ties to Chicago, but few have examined Chicago’s role serving as the primordial soup for Buchanan’s later work in public choice. Thus, we know very little about the sub-discipline of public finance at Chicago and its institutional and intellectual traditions in the immediate post war period. As the influence of Knight, price theory, and catallactics on Buchanan have been well explored, the focus here is on Buchanan’s graduate training in public finance, the departmental emphasis on product differentiation of ideas, and the general acceptance in ‘Old Chicago School’ economics of the importance of institutions and institutional design. I find that while maintaining a high degree of intellectual affinity with Chicago economics generally, Buchanan broke decisively with orthodox public finance (including that taught at Chicago) on several substantive issues early in his career, including the importance of expenditure theory and the relevance of the benefit principle and voluntary exchange.

Teaching Economics Using Historical Novels: Jonathan Harr's The Lost Painting

Undergraduate students are often interested in and benefit greatly from applications of economic principles. Historical novels drawn from real-world situations can engage students with economic concepts in new ways and provide a useful tool to help enhance instruction. In this article, the authors discuss the use of historical novels generally in microeconomics, and examine The Lost Painting, a historical novel by Jonathan Harr (2005), in detail. Topics illustrated in the novel include scarcity, opportunity cost, cost-benefit analysis, tax avoidance, labor market specialization, compensating wage differentials, competition and market structure, pricing, income, and government regulation. The authors include an in-depth description of how to incorporate a historical novel into a microeconomics class and provide some evaluation strategies.

Public Goods, Market Failure, and Voluntary Exchange

The core of public economics traditionally addresses two situations of market failure: externalities and public goods. While externalities fit neatly into neoclassical economics, public goods proved substantially more difficult to pin down. An interesting thread in the story of public goods relates to the application of voluntary exchange theory—the idea that the revenue-expenditure process should be determined by the same fundamental laws and procedures that govern market prices in the private aspects of the economy. Driven by the changing political landscape of Europe and greater demand for responsive government, voluntary exchange theory emerged in the 1880s as a competitor to models that represented government as a monolithic decision maker. That voluntary exchange has faded out of the public finance literature belies the role it served launching the public goods debate of the 1950s. In this article, voluntary exchange is used as a vehicle to examine positions taken on the market failure engendered by public goods. What we see is that the discussion was less about the mechanics of voluntary exchange theory or solutions to public goods problems than it was about beliefs regarding the economic role of government and how to delineate the appropriate boundaries of public economics inquiry. This in turn was stimulated by the larger background context of the period, particularly the nexus of free markets and democracy.

Harold Groves, Wisconsin Institutionalism and Postwar Public Finance

Abstract Institutionalism was the dominant approach to public finance prior to WWII, after which it was eclipsed by Pigouvianism and Keynesianism. This transition defined the career of Wisconsin’s Harold M. Groves (1897–1969). Groves was a notable public finance economist, leading textbook author, and drafter of significant tax and labor legislation. He represented the culmination of a multigenerational institutionalist tradition. In this paper, I examine Groves and postwar public finance as a test case for the legacy of Wisconsin institutionalism. To that end, I consider Groves’s contributions to postwar tax policy, his interactions with Henry C. Simons and Richard M. Musgrave, and his view on Keynesian public finance. I identify some Wisconsin institutionalist contributions to modern public finance and offer an explanation for the postwar decline in institutional public finance.

Student and Professor Gender Effects in Introductory Business Statistics

Studies have yielded highly mixed results as to differences in male and female student performance in statistics courses; the role that professors play in these differences is even less clear. In this paper, we consider the impact of professor and student gender on student performance in an introductory business statistics course taught by economics faculty. Using a sample of 535 students, we find, after controlling for academic and mathematical background, that students taught by a professor of the opposite gender fare significantly worse than students taught by a professor of the same gender. The presence of this gender effect highlights the importance of pursuing sound, gender-neutral pedagogical practices in introductory statistics education.

The Wicksellian Unanimity Rule: The Competing Interpretations of Buchanan and Musgrave

The disparate approaches of James Buchanan and Richard Musgrave to public economics are both anchored in Knut Wicksells contribution to the theory of public goods. In “A New Principle of Just Taxation,†the second essay of Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen (1896 [1994]), Wickseil considered how to design a voting mechanism to finance public goods and assure a just distribution of the tax burden. Applying the benefit principle to taxation, Wicksell argued that a unanimity-voting rule would guarantee that all individuals receive benefits commensurate to their tax cost from any public good. “No one can complain if he secures a benefit which he himself considers to be (greater or at least) as great as the price he has to pay†(Wicksell 1994, p. 79). Wicksells primary interest was not in determining the appropriate mix of public and private, instead he demonstrated how one might finance public expenditures provided the decision of the mix has already been made. The actual voting mechanism is much less controversial than the philosophy and antecedent assumptions behind the process. While Musgrave and Buchanan share common ground, agreeing to the originality of Wicksells work, and the necessity of considering the rules by which social decisions are made, their views on Wicksell are generally acknowledged to be radically different (Bernd Hansjurgens 1999, Pieter Hennipman 1982, David Riesman 1990).

Progressivism and Academic Public Finance, 1880 to 1930

This article examines the institutionalization of public finance as a subfield of economics in American universities from the founding of professional academic economics departments in the 1880s through the eve of the Great Depression. It is argued that what became identified as the accepted domain of public finance was fundamentally shaped by the Progressivism of leading practitioners, in particular Richard T. Ely, H. C. Adams, and E. R. A. Seligman. Considered is the development of a community of scholars recognized as specialists in public finance and the professionalization of public finance as a distinct field within economics. This includes examination of the subject’s definition, its boundaries, and the types of analyses undertaken. Academic training, including courses and readings, at Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, and Wisconsin is compared.