Alexander W. Salter—Teaching Philosophy
I firmly believe that economics educators have an obligation to equip students with the
necessary tools to participate responsibly in the democratic process. The most important of these
tools is understanding the economic way of thinking well enough to communicate its insights to
others.
Whether I am teaching microeconomics or macroeconomics, I emphasize the central
propositions of the economic way of thinking as the foundation for applied economics, including
public policy prescriptions. These propositions are: The purposiveness of individuals selecting
among various means to achieve their desired ends; the role of the price system in coordinating
economic activity; and the role of social-legal institutions that uphold the rule of law and protect
property rights in reconciling private self-interest with social well-being. I perceive my success
as an educator as deriving from my student-economists’ ability to understand and apply these
propositions to real-world economic activity.
In the classroom, my preferred instruction method is a mixture of traditional lecture and
discussion. Without engaging the students and challenging them to think critically, I believe
they get tangled up in abstractions without fully appreciating the power of the economic way of
thinking to explain the world. I have had great success in getting and holding students’ interest
by mixing theoretical discussion with applications to current events. (“Why might a tariff on tire
imports result in increased traffic fatalities?” “How can we tell whether the slow recovery is
primarily due to structural factors, versus overly-tight monetary policy?”) I also supplement my
lectures with video clips and data graphics, because I appreciate that many students learn best
with a visual component. I realize that each student has her own way of absorbing the material,
and my teaching is designed to be effective with a large range of learning styles.
My favored assignments are a mixture of in-class quizzes and problem sets. The quizzes
give students an incentive to keep up with the reading, which also fosters an in-classroom
environment conducive to discussion. I go out of my way to make sure my problem sets
challenge students to apply the material in new and interesting ways, rather than regurgitate what
they read in the textbook that week. In addition, my assigned readings include important articles
by professional economists, such as Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society” and Acemoglu,
Johnson, and Robinson’s “Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth.” I am
careful to make sure the emphasis is on the central idea of the article, rather than its technical
sophistication, which is often beyond the undergraduate level. By focusing on the article’s
thesis, I simultaneously show students how these ideas are discussed by professional economists
and how they fit into the history of ideas. When students are familiar with the context behind
these articles, they then find the ideas under discussion more interesting, and are more likely to
truly understand these ideas’ importance.
As a specialist in monetary theory and macroeconomics, I realize how contentious these
fields are relative to the core propositions of price theory. That is why I am committed to
making sure students are familiar with multiple schools of thought, along with the strengths and
weaknesses of each. Monetary theory and macroeconomics are especially policy-relevant, and I
realize my success as an educator is crucial for the sustenance of informed debate that is the
foundation of public discourse. Instilling in students the ability to discuss and debate these ideas
with confidence and helping them refine their views has been incredibly rewarding so far. I look
forward to continuing to do so throughout my scholarly career.