The current economic crisis has created changes in many aspects of the nation and state, and now UCLA is beginning to see these changes in the classroom.
Professors at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, as well as undergraduate economics professors, have begun to change the curriculum of their classrooms to cover the current economic crisis in California, as well as in the nation.
Last quarter, Roger Farmer, a professor of economics, included for the first time a whole section based entirely on the current crisis.
The section in the macroeconomics theory class covered several topics relating to current events, Farmer said.
One of the themes discussed in this brand new section was the role of confidence in the economy.
When people have more confidence in the market, it creates an increase in our economy, Farmer said. He tied this in with President Obama’s current economic stimulus plan and discussed the pros and cons as well as alternative plans.
“The most common comment I heard from students was how fantastic it was that an economics class taught something relevant rather than old theories,” Farmer said.
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, an Anderson professor, has also recently changed his “Introduction to Finance” course to incorporate the crisis. In each section, his class not only goes over the material, but also discusses how each aspect is related to the current economic situation.
In “Advanced Topics on Macroeconomics from Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth,” Francisco Buera, a professor of economics, also added a new section to his class.
The class itself covers long-run trend in economic growth and development, in which the professor introduced a section on natural resources and development.
The new section explores commodity prices, such as oil, and discusses this in relation to the current economic situation. It also examines recent trends in pricing related to fixed resources, such as land.
“The price of housing reflects to a large extent the value of land, a fixed resource,” Buera said. The section discusses how these two topics were behind some of the immediate causes of the recent economic crisis, he added.
Ariel Burstein, a professor of economics, also found the current crisis to be relevant and important in his “International Finance” class.
He used aspects of the current crisis as theoretical topics that were covered in his lectures this academic year.
Also, in his “International Financial Markets” classroom, Richard Roll, an Anderson professor, has included the financial crisis into his class, which is only offered once a year in the spring. The crisis has changed the way he teaches his current class, since last time it was offered there was no recession, Roll said.
The class covers the degree at which countries are interconnected with each other, which is important to investors who want to diversity in markets internationally, he added.
In discussion of the interconnectivity of countries, the crisis serves as an example, he said.
“The crisis struck countries around the world at the same,” he added.