Ethics and Economics Education
Moral foundations, economic principles, & critical thinking
Our Ethics and Economics Challenge program is using a new economics text this year, Common Sense Economics. We learned recently about the reasons why two particular kinds of government regulation — price controls and entry restrictions — are especially likely to cause harm. Price controls cause shortages or surpluses, while entry restrictions reduce competition. One kind of entry restriction is […]
Read moreLast week, I spoke to the Ethics and Economics Challenge students about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a stylized game for two players involving cooperation and defection; we played it with the following rules: Players reveal either a black or a red card simultaneously. Reveal a black card to “push” $0.30 to the other player. Reveal a red […]
Read moreWhom do you trust to tell the truth? A long-running survey by the British pollster Ipsos MORI asks respondents which occupations they trust the most to tell the truth. Doctors, teachers, judges, scientists, hairdressers, police, and clergy were the most trusted occupations. Politicians, government ministers, and journalists were among the least trusted occupations. Why do we trust politicians so little? […]
Read moreLast week, I discussed the book Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone with the Ethics & Economics Challenge students at MVHS. It’s a nice, readable book that drapes some heavy-duty political science in engaging story-telling. One of the concepts we discussed was the Arrow Theorem, discovered by economist and mathematician Kenneth Arrow. The Arrow Theorem shows us why there’s no […]
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