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Introduction
The economy impacts nearly ever facet of our lives, from where we live, to how we work, to the things we buy and use. And the way we teach economics—and especially the framing and the content of the traditional, introductory economics courses, such as Econ 101—is a significant factor in shaping that economy.
In particular, the concepts, methods, and key takeaways in these courses form the basis for how the general public thinks about economics, while also providing the intellectual foundation for budding economists, policymakers, and leaders who will one day confront, and make important decisions about, issues and challenges related to the economy. For these reasons, economics is a critical and foundational component of a modern-day education.
However, despite its importance for individuals and for society more broadly, the traditional introductory economics curriculum has remained largely unchanged for decades. We've made strides in technologies that allow us to teach in new and different ways, have access to volumes of data that would have been unthinkable last century, and have furthered economics research in its diversity, in its content, and in its methods. But this progress has not been sufficiently incorporated into early and intermediate economics education, which leaves learners with an outdated and incomplete understanding of what economics is, how the economy works, how economic analysis can be done, and the ways economics and public policy combine to shape the world we live in.
imagine economics has been created to help fill this gap. Our goal is to provide value to:
- Teachers and professors of economics who are interested in leveraging technology and data as a supplement to their existing course content;
- Students who are interested in a more modern way of approaching economics and who want to build skills in computation and programming; and
- Learners in the general public who want to explore economics and can benefit from our approach.
imagine economics content has been designed with three educational pillars in mind: pluralism, simulation, and interactivity. The following sections explore these pillars in more detail.