Since such a tiny fraction of AEA members picked teaching, we might reasonably conclude that most members have other interests. About 38% of those completing the survey had non-academic positions, so they justifiably might express no interest in teaching. After excluding non-academic respondents, only 3.5% of academics expressed an interest in teaching, implying that 96.5% were interested in other specialty areas, presumably research. But a just-published study raises questions about the fruitfulness of all that research interest, at least as reflected by journal publications. E. Bruce Hutchinson and Terry L. Zivney, in the Winter 1995 issue of The Journal of Economic Education, examine the research productivity of Ph.D. economists drawn randomly from the annual AEA list of "degrees conferred in economics." The authors randomly selected 80 economists per year between 1969 and 1988, yielding a sample of 1,600 Ph.D. economists. They then tracked the publication records of these economists in 126 journals - a broad reflection of research outlets. The bottom line? Only 619, or 39% of the 1,600 economists, had published at least one article or note between 1969 and 1988. So only a minority had published even a single article or note during the twenty-year period. Of those with ten or more years beyond the Ph.D. (or an average of 15 years of experience), only 46% had published at least one article or note. Thus, the majority (54%) of veteran economists had not published a single article or note during the twenty years examined.

Given all we hear about "publish or perish," there is surprisingly little publishing going on. Since more than half of those averaging 15 years beyond the Ph.D. had not published even a single article or note, publishing would not appear integral to the practice of economics for the majority of academic economists. In light of this, we might ask why only 3.5% of AEA academic members identified teaching as one of their "specialty areas." Is it because, despite recent rhetoric to the contrary, there is a stigma associated with a professed interest in teaching? For example, a recent Ph.D. in economics who won a teaching award as a graduate student was advised not to list the award on his c.v. because it might signal a special interest in teaching - a message that could hurt his job prospects at research universities.

In most cases the "multi" of the media is a picture. Of the 4,961 articles with media beyond electronic print, 4,420 have pictures, 1,007 have sound, 596 have tables or charts, 569 have maps, 83 have animations, 29 have videos, and six are interactive, meaning that the user must respond to questions. Note that only 2% of the multimedia articles and 0.5% of all articles involve moving pictures.

Since Encarta’95 is the best selling multimedia encyclopedia on the market (based in part on Microsoft’s strong reputation), and since students will increasingly come to rely on these computer-based alternatives as learning resources, let’s review the economic content.

As far as economics is concerned, the multimedia part is largely useless. For example, there are no sound clips that relate to economics, though there are brief (20-second) sound clips of some public figures. I found no videos or animations that developed any economic ideas. When economics is pictured, the focus is often one of pathology, such as pictures from the Great Depression. A few, mostly classical, economists are pictured - you know, those old, black-and-white photos that make economists look irrelevant. There are some tables and charts but most are dated. For example, poverty data are from 1986. So, pictures, tables, and charts are the only multimedia contributions to economics. But, of course, these can usually be found in any book on economics.

Like any encyclopedia, the coverage of economics is spotty. There are short biographies of some economists, and some articles are written by economists, such as articles on "economics," "money," and "capital." But most fundamental ideas get little or no coverage. Many key ideas appear nowhere in Encarta’95, such as marginal benefit, opportunity cost, and sunk cost. And some key ideas are confusing. For example, here’s an explanation of comparative advantage:

"The comparative advantage comes if the mathematics of production costs and price received work out so that each trading partner has a product that will bring a better price in another country than it will at home."

So students won’t find much here they can’t find in any encyclopedia. And they will find considerably less than in any principles book. What students can do with Encarta’95, however, is enter a key word or words and call up all the articles where the word or words appear - an electronic index, so to speak. For example, "economics" appears in 1499 articles and "economy" appears in 890. Encarta’95 finds a single word more readily than combinations of words. It can't easily find word strings but can find up to three combinations that appear within a line or two of each other. For example, the best it can do in finding "marginal cost" is to find articles where "marginal" and "cost" appear within a line or two of each other (in either order). Based on such a search, "marginal" and "cost" appear in only four articles out of 26,256, and in only two of these is marginal cost used in the economic sense.

Encarta’95 gives us a chance to explore the prevalence of individual words and word combinations. For example, "scarce resources" appears a dozen times but "unlimited wants" not once. "Money" never finds "happiness," but meets with "success" nine times and with "satisfaction" three times. "Wealth" is twice as common as "poverty" (334 vs. 155), and "economic depression" (92) more common than "economic recession" (19). "Economic recovery" and "economic prosperity" each appears 38 times. And "economic equality" (23) appears twice as much as "economic efficiency" (11).

The words "economist" or "economists" appear 137 times - less frequently than writers (1,295), poets (1,035), engineers (849), historians (442), physicians (386), physicists (368), chemists (317), and lawyers (222), but more frequently than psychologists (113), carpenters (38), sociologists (29), dentists (15), political scientists (11), and plumbers (2). (You may recall that Keynes argued in Essays in Persuasion that "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.")

Another learning tool to keep an eye on is Microsoft’s Bookshelf, which is now available on CD-ROM as part of Microsoft’s Office Professional. The Bookshelf reference disc includes The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d. ed. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992); the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University Press, 1991); Roget’s Thesaurus (Longman Group, 1987); The People’s Chronology (Henry Holt, 1992); The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, (Columbia University Press, 1993); and The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1994 (both from Funk and Wagnall, 1993).

Bookshelfallows the user to type a word or word combination, then search any book or all books combined to find instances where the word or combination appears. An audio feature also pronounces many words upon request. The economic content of Bookshelf is thin. For example, "opportunity cost" does not show up, nor does "sunk cost" or "comparative advantage." I mention Bookshelf more for its promise and technique than for its current usefulness.

Computer-based learning tools will only get better. My principles book, for example, is available on a CD-ROM that includes animated graphs, self-tests, sound, videos, and full search capability (for instance, "opportunity cost" can be found in 186 places). The philosopher Eric Hoffer said, "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." We must continue to be learners.

As most everyone knows by now, the Internet links people via computer terminals, telephonelines, and wireless connections through a web of networks and shared software, allowing users inone area to reach other users anywhere in the "Net." Created originally by the Pentagon, theInternet is now subsidized by the National Science Foundation, which controls its core computernetwork. A big breakthrough in user friendliness came in 1993 with the creation ofthe World Wide Web, software that helped create order out of chaos. Millions of copies of theoriginal Web browser, Mosaic, have been distributed free over the Internet.

Despite increasing accessibility through some public libraries, computer bulletin boards, andsoftware packages, the primary users remain government officials, corporate researchers, andacademics. Although relatively few economists use the Internet, an incredible amount of economicinformation is available, including extensive U.S. data series from the Fed and the U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, a bibliography of more than 35,000 working papers in economics, householdsurveys from 22 different countries, the AEA directory of members, Job Openings forEconomists, more than 70 mailing lists, abundant corporate financial data, Usenet newsgroups,and a list of economists who use Internet. There is even a new journal published entirelyon e-mail, the bimonthly Cyberchronicle of Political Economy (COPE). Most information is free. One source that is not free is the Electronic Bulletin Board at the U.S. Commerce Department, which charges an annual fee of $45 plus hourly rates ranging from $6 on weekends to $24 on weekday mornings.

Bill Goffe, an economist at the University of Southern Mississippi, has compiled a list of"Resources for Economists on the Internet." He updates the document every threemonths. The most recent version stretches 72 single-spaced pages.

Goffe’s document can be found in several places including:

Most Internet resources are aimed at research rather than teaching,although, of course,there is overlap since economic information can be used for both.The Economic History Server,for example, combines a bit of both, offering more than 40 syllabi from economic history coursesplus historical data series.

One source that focuses exclusively on undergraduate economics teaching is a discussion listcalled TCH-ECON. Established in the summer of 1993, TCH-ECON is thefruit of discussions at the EasternEconomic Association meetings. The list is run by Jim Barbour, an economist of ElonCollege in North Carolina. TCH-ECON is like a high-tech C.B. radio network. Topics range from datasources appropriate for undergraduates to the pros and cons of various textbooks and variousteaching approaches. Messages come in like any other e-mail. There are more than three hundredsubscribers, including some from Europe, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Traffic varies from one ortwo messages per day during vacations and exam time to as many as 30 a day if some topic heatsup. Average traffic is about a dozen messages a day.

Barbour thinks interacting in this way makes for better teaching if for no other reason than one isforced to think more about teaching. He likens the forum to a huge faculty lounge, whereeveryone gets a chance to speak. Whether people listen is another matter. The list offers theimmediate communication of teaching ideas. The price of this immediacy is that subscribers mustwade through a certain amount of material of little interest to them. If a message seems inappropriate forthe audience, Barbour lets the sender know it, though the message is still distributed. He is nowworking on bundling messages according to specific topics.

• A comparison of the number of students in principles of economics courses with the number of undergraduate economics degrees awarded annually suggests that only about one student out of a class of thirty principles students will go on to major in economics. So the principles student who goes on is the rare exception. Should this information affect the way we teach the principles course?

• In the Spring 1994 issue of The Teaching Economist, Isummarized a study by Larry White of NYU on how Ph.D. programs assess teachereffectiveness. That study has now been published in the Winter 1995issue of the Journal of Economic Education (pp. 81-85).

• In 1980, The Journal of Economic Education was ranked 50th out of 108 journals in terms of the number of times it was cited in economics literature. By 1990, it had jumped to 27th out of 130 journals listed.

• "One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."
  -Walter Bagehot

  "Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil."

  -Joseph A. Schumpeter

  "The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."

  -Mark Twain

  "It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well."

  -Henri-Frédéric Amiel
  

  (Swiss philosopher and poet)

Economic Idea

__ Inelastic demand

__ Principal-agent problem

__ Diminishing marginal utility

__ Sunk cost

__ Value of job opportunity

__ Rate of time preference

__ Power of financial incentives

Shakespearean Quote

1. "Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done."
   
   Macbeth
   

   "By and by is easily said."
   

   Hamlet
   

   "Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back when gold and silver becks me to comeon."
   

   King John
   

   "You take my life when you take the means whereby I live."
   

   The Merchant of Venice
   

   "When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price theywill."
   

   Much Ado About Nothing
   

   "If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work."

   Henry IV
   

   "Let every eye negotiate for itself, and trust no agent."
   

   Much Ado About Nothing