Noah Smith, Columnist

Most of What You Learned in Econ 101 Is Wrong

The theory is out of date.

November 24, 2015 at 1:00 PM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

Hey, econ majors. Hold the celebration.
Photographer: Ulrich Baumgarten/Getty Images

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Harvard's Greg Mankiw, author of the most popular college introductory economics textbook, is often regarded as America's econ teacher. He famously refers to his "Principles of Economics" as "my favorite textbook," and I must admit that it's also my favorite. It's written in a clear, explanatory style and covers the basics of most important theories in modern economics.

But Mankiw's book, like every introductory econ textbook I know of, has a big problem. Most of what's in it is probably wrong.