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Claire Jones, “Economics: Change of Course,” Financial Times, 16 May 2014

When Yuan Yang began her economics course in autumn 2008, she was shocked that within the cloisters of Balliol College, little attention was paid to the world outside. As Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy left markets reeling, her lectures at Oxford university offered little to help her understand how the failure of a single US investment bank could cause global pandemonium.

Only when she voiced her disquiet to her tutor did she encounter theories that offered explanations for what was happening. “The crisis exposed how disconnected the teaching of economics is from helping students understand real-world events,” says Ms Yang, now a 23-year-old student at the University of Beijing. “When I discovered that, within economics, there was an alternative to what I was being taught, it was such a relief. I had felt like I was part of an intellectual enclave that had no consideration for what could be learnt from psychology, philosophy or anything else in the social sciences.”

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In 2012 Ms Yang helped found the Rethinking Economics network, aimed at changing what she describes as the subject’s isolation from public debate. The network has branches around the world, which are among the 42 student organisations that this month signed an open letter calling for the standard curriculum to be overthrown.

The students, who are scattered over 19 countries on four continents, are demanding professors scrap their focus on a single way of analysing the economy. The signatories, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, want more discussion of alternative theories and methods. Rather than just prepare them for a career in finance, they want their courses to grapple with the big problems of the economy.

“Most economics models we’re taught consider just one thing: profit. There’s little consideration of sustainability or equity,” says Nicolò Fraccaroli, the founder of one of the groups – Rethinking Economics Italia – and a student at Luiss Guido Carli in Rome. “Universities need to teach you how to do a job. But first we need to be sure that people who are going to move massive amounts of capital are conscious of what they’re doing.”

Lena Kaiser said her interest in economics was piqued by wanting to understand inequality, the theme of Thomas Piketty’s bestseller, Capital in the 21st century . Her studies at the University of Mannheim left her disappointed. “The questions I wanted to discuss weren’t discussed at all. There was no critical thought whatsoever.”

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But over the past three decades, undergraduate courses have been increasingly dominated by the quantitative methods of the neoclassical school. Almost six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the standard university course has barely changed. A study by Peps-Economie, a group of students who came together in 2009, found that just 1.7 per cent of modules in French universities covered economic history and there was just one course at a single university devoted to the epistemology of economics.

Eric Beinhocker, head of the Oxford Martin School’s wing of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, an organisation founded in 2009 by billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros, says: “The world has changed a lot. Economics has changed a lot, too. But the curriculum hasn’t.”

Reformers accept that policies with their roots in mainstream neoclassical economics helped contribute to the Great Moderation, the era of stability and prosperity in the decades running up to the crisis. Yet they view as myopic the focus on just one school of thought. Louison Cahen-Fourot, a member of Peps-Economie, says: “We’re not anti-neoclassical, or anti-maths. We just see it as one part of something much bigger.”

The turmoil since 2008 has provided a fresh catalyst for change. Camilla Cea, who was involved in student protests in Chile between 2011 and 2013, says: “The critics to today’s curriculum have long existed. [But] the financial crisis has acted as a trigger.”

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Critics of the students’ demands point to the work of economists they view as mainstream, whom they argue explain the crisis. They also contend that the methodologies used by other schools lack rigour.

Yet student frustration – fuelled and disseminated by social media – remains clear. Mr Cahen-Fourot, active in the Peps-Economie group since moving to Paris in 2011, says: “Without any co-ordination, students around the world had all had the same feelings about their economics education. We started to think it was a global problem.”

Last December he sent Facebook messages and emails, eventually arranging a Skype call in late January. Mr Fraccaroli says: “We speak around 10 different languages and a lot of us – like me – are not native English speakers. But we shared the same feelings. We had some arguments but we solved them and the way we have co-ordinated our campaign around the world is proof of it.”

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Partly inspired by the letter, a branch of Rethinking Economics has been founded in Beijing.

Some worry that renewed global growth could muffle calls for reform. “The crisis has been very important. Economic recovery helps people to pretend there is nothing wrong,” says Joe Earle, a member of the Post-Crash Economics Society. “Student life is very transient and curriculum change only happens with a lag so we need to keep the pressure up.”

Others are more positive. “The letter was very thoughtfully done. Now it’s up to faculties to listen and be as constructive,” Mr Beinhocker said. “I’m quite optimistic you will start to see change.”

Student protests have come and gone, and the question remains whether the mooted curriculum reforms would have mass appeal. Mr Vass is confident. He says his old classmates no longer view him as a time-waster. “Those people [who told me to be quiet] come up to me and say: ‘Now I understand why you were so critical’. There’s a completely different attitude.”