___"A debate on the teaching in economics. At last...!"___ "The declaration written and signed up by a group of students in economics from French universities and "grandes écoles" is something professors in economics can not be unconcerned about. Some because they will feel questioned by it. Others, in opposite, because they share the claims and worries that are stated. The problems raised by the students are the following: - the important space occupied by the neoclassical theory and the "mismatching between the teaching and the actual reality", while it’s necessary to proceed to a permanent feed back to fact and to provide answers that are "useful to economic and social actors" , - using mathematics as a finality per se rather then as a tool, and as a instrument of selecting students under cover of Science, - a teaching based on lectures that does not open up to thinking, - the need for a plurality of explanations adapted to the complexity of the objects analyzed. It is worrying to observe that students feel, from the teaching that they get and the exercises they practice, that the activity of an economist would consist in "running" models with no link with the actual realities. As if the job of the economist was about manipulating "imaginary worlds", avoiding the analysis of major contemporary issues. Now, if we look at the past 25 years, and only mentioning developed countries, the moral responsibility of economists is engaged through unemployment and social exclusion. Too often, research and teaching in economics are reduced to a play on variables, in more or less complex models, to the detriment of the quality of answers to issues raised by contemporary mutations. If mathematical virtuosity may sometime be acclaimed as the one of an artist in front of his masterpiece, in no way can it provide satisfactory answers in front of the seriousness of social issues. The technicity and the "scientific" appearance of arguments reduced to the use of mathematics often hide the emptiness of proposals and the lack of concern about operational answers. As every scientific field does, economics is focused on the explanation of actual phenomena. The validity and the relevancy of a theory can in fine only be assessed through a necessary confrontation with "facts". This is why we can only, with students, deplore the development of a pedagogy in economics privileging the presentation of theories, the building of models, the capacity to write and derive properties of models whose empirical relevancy would not be (or too little) discussed. Or which highlights the formal quality of the construction to the detriment of the discussion of the interpretative and demonstrative capacity regarding "reality". The first interest of a model is the nature, the power and the efficiency of the abstraction that it proposes to inform. The prime competence of the economist should be to realize this task. It is not a mathematical issue. "Getting back to facts" is not an obvious task, indeed. Any science lies on facts that are built up and conceptualized. Different paradigms therefore appear, each of them constituting different families of representation and modalities of interpretation or construction of reality. But this should not lead us to resign ourselves to a shortsightedness and auto-referentiality. Acknowledging the existence and the role of paradigms should not be used as an argument for setting up different citadels, unquestionable from the outside. Paradigms should be confronted and discussed. But this can not be done, or it would be empiricism, on the base of a "natural" or immediate representation. One can not avoid using the tools provided by statistics and econometrics. But performing a critical assessment of a model should not be approached on a exclusively quantitative base. As rigorous, from a formal point of view, as may be the origin of a "economic law" or of a theorem, as satisfactory and convincing as may seem the statistical fit to observed facts, one always need to assess the relevancy and the validity regarding the context and the type of situation to which its scope may be subordinated. One should also take into account the institutions, history, strategies of actors and groups, the sociological dimensions, as well as more epistemological matters. However, these dimensions of economics are cruelly missing in the training of our students. This situation may be solved with introducing specialized courses. But it’s not so much the addition of new courses that is important, but much more the linking of relevant knowledge’s in a same given training program. Students are claiming for that, and we consider that there are right here. The fragmentation of our discipline should be fought against. For instance, macroeconomics should highlight, itself, the importance of institutional constraints, of structures, and of the role of history. How can it be suggested that the same models, the same theories should have a priori the same relevancy for the United States, for France or for Japan? Each teaching course can, and should, refer to several specialties. One should not develop on one side a course in theoretical macroeconomics, on another side a course in history, and later a course in epistemology, leaving to the student the enormous task of performing a synthesis of the disciplines, and to set up all the relevant connections. He (or she) is not able to achieve such a synthesis. But, above all, it would consist in following a bad path regarding the pedagogy in economics. What matters is the capacity to solve problems, therefore the capacity to approach a given situation under different aspects. Therefore, should we not only teach specialties but teach how to build connections. Students need to learn how to learn and to perform by themselves the linking which are relevant in the study of a problem. This leads us to the issue of pluralism. Because the existence of different theories can be explained by the nature of the assumed hypotheses, the questions stated, the choice of a more or less long temporal spectrum in which the analysis and the "régulations" take place, of by the institutional and historical context. The system to which the study of the given phenomenon is referring may be more or less large. The setting up of its boundary is part of the problem to be solved. Pluralism is not only a matter of, as some may think, different prejudice or basic visions which would express specific commitments. Pluralism is not only a matter of ideology. It is, indeed, more confortable and simple, when confronting theories, to attribute the differences to ideological divergences. It may be the case, but it is far from always being the case. Pluralism must be part of the basic culture of the economist. Regarding research, everyone is free to develop the type of thinking and stream toward which its convictions and fields of interest may lead him (her). Regarding pedagogy, in a much complexified and continuously evolving world, it is impossible to avoid alternative representations and to commit to a strong fragmentation of disciplines. This leads us to the questioning of the neoclassical theory. The preponderant space it occupies is, indeed, questionable as far as pluralism is concerned. But there is a more important issue than the statement of this principle. The fiction of a rational representative agent, the importance given to the notion of equilibrium, the idea according to which the market, regulated by prices, essentially constitutes the main (if not unique) locus of adjustments of behaviors: these are as many analytical principals founding a research strategy whose efficiency and relevancy is not obvious neither proved. Our conception of economics, more political, is based on some principals of behaviors of another kind (principal of bounded rationality for instance). It acknowledges the importance of history and institutions, includes the existence of direct interactions between agents, and acknowledges that their heterogeneity is, per se, an important factor for the dynamics of the system. It keeps an important role to adjustments of behaviors which goes beyond the market and are not limited to prices and quantities equilibrium. Organizations play a double role: as agents, and as systems of agents. The phenomena of power can not be a priori excluded or put aside. The study of long dynamics, of shifts and crises, allow to put in perspective and to better apprehend contemporary evolutions. The fact that "in most cases" the teaching maintains a central role to neoclassical thesis is questionable for other reasons. Students are, indeed, leaded to believe not only that the neoclassical theory is the only scientific stream, but also that scientificity can be explained through it’s axiomatic characteristic or by the systematic of exclusive use of formalized modeling under all its aspects. Let us state it straight: the neoclassical theory is not more scientific than other approaches in economics. Naturally, this does not mean that it is less scientific. In any way, we denounce, with students, the totally abusive assimilation that is often made between scientificity and the use of mathematics. The debate on the scientificity of economics as a social science can not be limited to the question of using mathematics or not. Let’s go further: raising the debate in those terms is actually about deluding people and avoiding true questions and issues which as far more important, we mean the object and the nature of modeling itself. Not mentioning the already stated risk of an economic thought focused on resolving "imaginary" problems Concerning pedagogy, the consequence is immediate: if the space left to mathematics is too important, and if it is suggested that a good economist has necessarily to be a good mathematician (and, according to some, reciprocally) we are therefore facing a pitiful and unjustified perverse misuse. The strong inclination, in France, which consists in considering that mastering the mathematical tool is the criteria of the capacity to elaborate a scientific discourse, is of common knowledge. The central role attributed to pure mathematics as a tool for selecting students willing to enter "grandes écoles", is also well known. Some have set up similar type of selection for entering bachelor training in economics. One can have some doubts about the relevancy of such pedagogical strategy. We should look at this role attributed to mathematics in trainings in economics as a national specificity that nothing, fundamentally, from inside the discipline, can justify. At least, nothing can justify the excess we have reached. We only have to observe the programs set up by the very countries who are used as a reference by the ones who defend this "derive" to be able to catch this specificity. A quality, and state of the art, teaching in economics is very much feasible without needing to reproduce a style of training not adapted to students and, above all, a training that leads to neglect two strong features of the university: the diversity of student’s degree course on one side, and the training to critical thinking on the other side. We give our full support to the claims made by the students. We are particularly concerned with initiatives that may be taken at the local level in order to provide beginning of answers to their expectations. We hope that those will be heard by all the students in economics in universities. In order to do so, we are ready to enter a dialogue with students and to be associated with the holding of a national conference that would allow the opening of a public debate for all". I want to sign this petition : click this link and please mention your name, city, state, and preferably your "institutional" mail (as a mean of signature) Thank you for your support. For the time being, since we have not set up a Forum system yet, the only way to reach us is via the above mentioned mail. Feel free to use it but, since it's a individual mail, with parsimony ... Linked page 1 | Linked page 2 | Linked page 3 This is the first version of this site. Please excuse us of any probable defaults. Il existe une traduction de la motion des enseignants et elle est disponible en ligne à l'adresse suivante : http://www.samizdat.net/debateco/PetitUK1.html Par ailleurs, il existe maintenant un forum de discussion à cette adresse : ( discussion forum) http://www.samizdat.net/bbs/list.php?f=4 Enfin, je vous signale que j'ai ouvert depuis mi septembre une liste "internationale" qui comprend déjà environ quatre vingt noms et qui devrait être publiée dans le numéro à paraître en décembre de la revue L'économie politique. Les collègues anglais qui veulent signer doivent m'adresser un mail pour me signaler leur volonté de voir leur nom figurer sur cette liste. Je serai très heureux d'en accueillir le maximum. For any technical comment on this page, please mail the webmaster TO ADD YOUR SIGNATURE CONTACT: mailto: bernard.paulré@univ-paris1.fr If you want to sign this petition : click this link and please mention your name, city, state, and preferably your "institutional" mail (as a means of signature)
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