Our Story

We were inspired to start the society when hearing about the 2011 Bank of England Conference – ‘Are Economics Graduates Fit for Purpose?’. At this event, leading economists from the public and private sphere came together to discuss whether economics undergraduates were being taught the right things in light of the Financial Crisis. This event, of almost unprecedented magnitude, had global repercussions. However, as the conference took place its affect on the syllabus was minimal at most. It was not immediately thought that the crash called for a new approach within economics. However, the BoE conference called this conclusion into question. We in Manchester were intrigued and excited to hear about this event. The economics we were learning seemed separate from the economic reality that the world was facing, and devoid from the crisis that had made many of us interested in economics to begin with. Through our own research, we began to learn more about economics. We examined how its mainstream had begun to be dominated by a certain kind of economics, often referred to as neoclassical, at the expense of other approaches. It was decided to set up a society that would bring this discussion to Manchester.

We began with small, informal meetings mid way through the 2012/13 academic year. We have grown, and as of today we are vibrant student society at the forefront of debate discussing how economists should be educated. We have appeared in newspapers such as The Guardian and Washington Post, have 13,700 followers on Twitter , had over 400 people attend one of our events, and regularly bring world class economists to Manchester to take part in an integral discussion. In 2014, we published our report, Economics, Education and Unlearning, which has been downloaded over 20,000 times. Since thepublication of our report, we have continued the discussions with our economics department and with a large number of academics in the course of conferences and events we organised in Manchester. In this way, we have started to bring the changes that we would like to see to our university. Yet, even if things have begun to move, the fundamental concerns presented in our 2014 report are still there.

Moreover, at Post-Crash we are committed to campaigning for a change in the syllabus itself. Whilst we believe events and discussion are extremely valuable, most students won’t receive the economics education they require unless the content of their degrees change. So what has changed since 2014? First of all, we are very pleased about the introduction of new modules: for example, one that tackles concrete, real world issues in public policy, one that offers an applied economics dissertation or one that is dedicated to the “reasons why mainstream economics neglects power relations” (University of Manchester 2020) and the resulting problems. Economic History is now an optional module in each year of study. What is more, we are particularly grateful to a number of lecturers who have been interested in our position and very open for discussion. Many lecturers havesaid they agree with some of our calls for more essays and critical thinking, but bemoan the high student-staff ratios and demands from management that keep them from implementing anything like this. The department has started an event series, called “Lunch with the Economists”, with guests showcasing a range of ways economics is useful in academic research and employment. We do not claim credit for these changes, but they are consonant with many of our demands from 2014.

What is more, we have been supported by well-established academics and practitioners ranging from the Bank of England’s chief economist Andrew Haldane to the professors Mariana Mazzucato, James A. Robinson, Victoria Chick, Ha-Joon Chang and Lord Robert Sidelsky. Wide support from employers, as the Rethinking Economics Employers Report (2018) suggests, further reinforces the need to listen to students who do not feel prepared for a “real world job”.