An Introduction to the Proceedings of the 1987 Invitational Conference on the Principles of Economics Textbook

Abstract

The principles of economics textbook has become the book that economics professors love to hate-or at least berate. This love/hate/berate relationship has not diminished the flow of new textbooks, however. All instructors in the principles of economics course are subjected to the annual of adoption-that period when sales persons appear with their smiles and calling cards to display the thick, slick, colorful tomes that purportedly will produce a generation of economic literates. Having participated in these rites as textbook authors, users, lovers, haters, and beraters, we thought it appropriate to call a time out-to pause for a day and assimilate the collective wisdom of several highly regarded economics educators and authors of introductory textbooks. Fifty professors from virtually every type of college and university who teach the introductory economics course also participated in the discussion. Professor Kenneth E. Boulding was our keynote speaker. The three presenters were Professor Carolyn Shaw Bell from Wellesley College, Professor Michael J. Boskin from Stanford University, and Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz from Princeton University. Each of these presentations was followed by two respondents who are textbook authors. The respondents were Ryan C. Amacher from Clemson University, Karl Case from Wellesley College, Edwin G. Dolan from George Mason University, Campbell R. McConnel from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Bradley Schiller from The American University, and Werner Sichel from Western Michigan University. The keynote speaker and the three presenters were assigned the task of preparing papers that dealt with the larger issues involved in economics instruction at the undergraduate level. Possible issues included the expanded role of the textbook in the classroom and the strong reliance of some instructors on them, the encyclopedic nature of the modern introductory textbook, the stifling of author innovativeness and imagination, the incorporation of new material, and, finally, the tendency to encourage technique and technical mastery rather than historical, institutional, and