Crossing the threshold: From theory to application in intermediate macroeconomics

Research on pedagogical issues associated with the delivery and assessment of economics curriculum has increased noticeably since the early 1990s. This has been driven partly by necessity, as declining numbers in economics majors have caused departments to evaluate their performance, partly by the interests of some economists in pedagogy and partly by an increase in teaching of economics to students who have opted for majors other than economics. This paper arises from latter two causes and reports on an innovation that has been trialed with classes of international business students at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Auckland, New Zealand over two semesters in 2000. Given that students in international business at AUT are drawn from a range of faculties, including business, science and arts, there is no guarantee that they have any background in economics when they enrol in Business and the Macroeconomic Environment, an intermediate level open economy macroeconomics paper and a core paper in the International Business major. In order to meet the needs of the course and those of the students, the lecturers on this course have developed an innovative approach to assessing and teaching the course. The emphasis of this approach is in aiding the students to cross the threshold from theory to application using real world data and business application. The rationale for, and details of the approach are outlined and the outcome of this new approach is evaluated.