Reviews

Planet Economics

“My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics,” Review

By Tim Koechlin, economist, International Studies and Urban Studies at Vassar College, director of Vassar’s International Studies Program.

“My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics” is a terrific film. When I am done writing this review, I am going to send a thank-you note to Mary Filippo (the film’s director). She deserves it….If you have ever taken an economics course and thought “what is going on?”—you should watch this movie. If you have ever taken an economics course and thought “Aha! So that’s how it works!”—you should watch this movie. And if you teach economics, you should share this film with your students. Read full review in Dollars and Sense

 

Your Economics Professor is almost Certainly a Charlatan

A review with commentary of ‘My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics’, a film by Mary Filippo

By Michael D. Yates, Professor Emeritus (Economics) at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown and Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press.

This fifty-eight-minute film will interest anyone who has taken a college-level course in economics, especially those who were baffled by the professor’s pronouncements but too insecure or embarrassed to ask an obvious question. Filmmaker Mary Filippo began in 2004 to audit economics classes in the hope that she could “learn something about globalization. Does it really help people in developing countries? What are its downsides?” She did not learn these things. She says, “What I found in these courses was instead a difficult to understand presentation of the economy through graphic models.” Read full article in Monthly Review

Video: “Mis-Education” gets to big problems with economics courses

By Greg Hannsgen, Research Associate, Levy Institute, Bard College

I post today to recommend a video about the profound weaknesses that plague mainstream economics. I mean the fundamentals as taught at the undergraduate level. These deep problems remain important at all levels. They muddle discussion of public issues. The film is entertaining and fast paced, featuring leading lights in critical traditions in the field, including ecological economics, radical political economy, and feminist economics. Nothing the film mentions is anything but a huge problem with economics.

The film, funded in part by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, runs about 58 minutes. It makes the case that economics education needs to be re-thought. greghannsgen.org

Review of My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics

By David M. Brennan, Professor, Franklin & Marshall College

What this movie does so very well is to legitimize initial student apprehensions, and exposes that the answers from neoclassical thought are grossly inadequate. It does this by showing clearly what the market model does not take into account when they say supply equals demand. Mary Filippo problematizes the concepts of efficiency, profits, and capital in crystal clear ways to her audience. Perhaps the best part of the movie is the end, wherein the neoclassical economists defend their theory on a self-proclaimed rigor of analysis. Yet the movie shows how preposterous such claims are in reality. The movie is a must for those exploring neoclassical fundamentals and especially for those that don’t want their economic concerns dismissed by models of economic fantasy.

appears in Monthly Review