What Does Econtalk's Russ Roberts Say Economics Class Is for?

Russ Roberts told the Y Combinator podcast that a teacher can give exams for 30 years and still fool himself. His favorite review was one out of five: he expected students to use the ideas on cases they had never seen. That was the point. Reciting a lecture is memorization. Taught well, economics is a lens, and the trick is making a lesson stick. A conversation beats a monologue, which is why three of his books are novels. He wants the follow-up "and then what?" A tax, a subsidy, a tariff, or a price control has an obvious first effect and a harder second one. He and John Papola put that in the rap video Fight of the Century.