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PopularCyberEconomics: An Analysis of Unintended Consequences
Year: 2002
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About CyberEconomics: An Analysis of Unintended Consequences:
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The purpose of CyberEconomics: An Analysis of Unintended Consequences is simple and not too ambitious: to provide an interactive supplement to a principles of economics course. Because no book publisher sponsors it, it is not designed to fit for any particular text book. Rather it reflects what I find logical for the development of the subject matter.
On these pages you will find a complete, two-semester course in introductory economics. Just as one does not read through a textbook in a few hours, neither can one absorb the content of this site in a few hours. Despite my best efforts, I cannot make an economics course as entertaining as watching a good soap opera or reading a racy novel. I suspect the only persons who will be get through any substantial amount of this material are those who are taking a course in economics, who need some supplemental help, and who have the discipline to spend twenty or thirty minutes a day working through this material. There may not be very many such people in the entire world, but if there are, I hope they find these pages useful.
Those who know what works on the web stress that text should be kept to a minimum because the web is a graphic medium. Even the modern textbooks seem to view themselves as multimedia presentations, with the text chopped into little bits and pieces of side-bars and inserts, with little flow from one part to the next, all decorated with full-color photographs and multicolored charts and graphs. Knowing this, it is with some hesitation that I embarked on this project, because I knew that this would not be a fancy multimedia experience. However I am skeptical of how useful a multimedia approach to economics really is.
I am a believer in an interactive approach, in which the learner must take an active part in the learning process, and that is what I have tried to do in these pages. After almost every reading selection there are questions which ask the reader to respond in some way, either by simply remembering what was presented in the text, or by applying the ideas of the text in some way. Many textbooks stress that they believe that learning economics requires working through problems, but I have not yet found any that really apply this. This site is an attempt to put more problem solving into the course.
Economics has been recognized as a special area of study for over a century. Virtually all four-year colleges offer courses in economics and most allow students to major in the subject. Economists maintain high profiles in governments, and they have been well-represented among the highest appointees in the federal government of the United States. The press reports on their doings and sayings, sometimes with praise and admiration, sometimes with ridicule and scorn. Economics and economists are words that almost everyone has heard of and uses. But what exactly is economics? Very few people can give a good definition or description of what this field of study is all about.
If ordinary citizens cannot give a good definition or description of economics, they can be excused because economists long struggled to define their field. In addition, in recent years, the subject matter that economists have studied has expanded, making its boundaries less defined. In recent years, for example, economic journals have published papers on topics such as sex, crime, slavery, childbearing, and rats. It is not surprising, then, that one economist, in a lighter moment, suggested that economics can be defined as "what economists do."
Defining economics as "what economists do" does not tell us anything we did not already know. A good definition must explain what it is that makes economics a distinct subject, different from physics or psychology. One should not expect to find a short definition that conveys with absolute clarity all there is to know about economics (or else there would be no reason to spend hours learning about it). Neither should one believe that there is only one correct definition possible. Many good definitions are possible, and each will focus on some important aspect of the subject. To use an analogy, there is not one spot from which one can best view Niagara Falls. Each viewpoint obscures some features and emphasizes others. There are, of course, some spots that are clearly superior to others, but people can disagree about which is the very best spot.
The purpose of CyberEconomics: An Analysis of Unintended Consequences is simple and not too ambitious: to provide an interactive supplement to a principles of economics course. Because no book publisher sponsors it, it is not designed to fit for any particular text book. Rather it reflects what I find logical for the development of the subject matter.
On these pages you will find a complete, two-semester course in introductory economics. Just as one does not read through a textbook in a few hours, neither can one absorb the content of this site in a few hours. Despite my best efforts, I cannot make an economics course as entertaining as watching a good soap opera or reading a racy novel. I suspect the only persons who will be get through any substantial amount of this material are those who are taking a course in economics, who need some supplemental help, and who have the discipline to spend twenty or thirty minutes a day working through this material. There may not be very many such people in the entire world, but if there are, I hope they find these pages useful.
Those who know what works on the web stress that text should be kept to a minimum because the web is a graphic medium. Even the modern textbooks seem to view themselves as multimedia presentations, with the text chopped into little bits and pieces of side-bars and inserts, with little flow from one part to the next, all decorated with full-color photographs and multicolored charts and graphs. Knowing this, it is with some hesitation that I embarked on this project, because I knew that this would not be a fancy multimedia experience. However I am skeptical of how useful a multimedia approach to economics really is.
I am a believer in an interactive approach, in which the learner must take an active part in the learning process, and that is what I have tried to do in these pages. After almost every reading selection there are questions which ask the reader to respond in some way, either by simply remembering what was presented in the text, or by applying the ideas of the text in some way. Many textbooks stress that they believe that learning economics requires working through problems, but I have not yet found any that really apply this. This site is an attempt to put more problem solving into the course.
Economics has been recognized as a special area of study for over a century. Virtually all four-year colleges offer courses in economics and most allow students to major in the subject. Economists maintain high profiles in governments, and they have been well-represented among the highest appointees in the federal government of the United States. The press reports on their doings and sayings, sometimes with praise and admiration, sometimes with ridicule and scorn. Economics and economists are words that almost everyone has heard of and uses. But what exactly is economics? Very few people can give a good definition or description of what this field of study is all about.
If ordinary citizens cannot give a good definition or description of economics, they can be excused because economists long struggled to define their field. In addition, in recent years, the subject matter that economists have studied has expanded, making its boundaries less defined. In recent years, for example, economic journals have published papers on topics such as sex, crime, slavery, childbearing, and rats. It is not surprising, then, that one economist, in a lighter moment, suggested that economics can be defined as "what economists do."
Defining economics as "what economists do" does not tell us anything we did not already know. A good definition must explain what it is that makes economics a distinct subject, different from physics or psychology. One should not expect to find a short definition that conveys with absolute clarity all there is to know about economics (or else there would be no reason to spend hours learning about it). Neither should one believe that there is only one correct definition possible. Many good definitions are possible, and each will focus on some important aspect of the subject. To use an analogy, there is not one spot from which one can best view Niagara Falls. Each viewpoint obscures some features and emphasizes others. There are, of course, some spots that are clearly superior to others, but people can disagree about which is the very best spot.