Description
Economics – macro, micro and mysterious – is integral to everyday life. But despite its importance for personal and collective decision making, it is a discipline often viewed as technical, arcane and inaccessible and thus overlooked in public discourse. This book is a call to arms to bring the discipline of economics more into the public domain. It calls on economists to think about how to make their knowledge of the economics public. And it calls on those who specialise in communicating expert knowledge to help us learn to communicate about economics. The book brings together scholars and practitioners working at the early stages of an emerging field: the public communication of, and public engagement with, economics. Through a series of short essays from academics and practitioners, the book has two key goals: first and foremost, it will make a case for why we need to make economics public and for the importance of having a clear vision of what it means to make economics public. Secondly, it suggests some ways that this can be done featuring contributions from practitioners, including economists, who are engaging audiences in newspapers, museums and beyond. This book is essential reading for those in economics with an interest in making economics public and those already in the many fields dedicated to communicating expert knowledge in public spaces who have an interest in where economics can fit.
More information about the book can be found here: https://www.makingeconomicspublic.org/
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why Make Economics Public?
Vicki Macknight and Fabien Medvecky
Section One Why Should We Make Economics More Public?
1 Towards a Political Economy of Public Understanding of Economics
John Durant
2 Power and Economics
Pierre Benz, Jens Maesse, Stephan Pühringer and Thierry Rossier
3 What Do People Know about Economics … and What Should They Know?
Anna Killick
Section Two How to Make Economics Public?
4 Public-Facing Economists
Romesh Vaitilingam
5 How the Economy Museum Makes Economic Public
Thomas Shepherd and Eva Johnston
6 The Networks of Economics: Economics About the Public Should Be for the Public
The Rethinking Economics Team
7 More Talk, Less Chalk: Communicating Economics in the Modern Classroom
Christopher L. Colvin
Section Three Challenges in Communicating Economics
8 Knowing Economics with Your Phone
Vicki Macknight
9 The Problem of Politics in Communicating Economics
Kevin Albertson
10 Who Are the Economic Experts?: How Can One Tell?
Carlo Martini
11 Ethical Considerations in Making Economics Public
Joan Leach and Fabien Medvecky
Section Four Economics in a Democratic World
12 Free Speech, Rhetoric, and a Free Economy
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
