CORE reforms the basics of economics education

The economics education of the CORE project focuses on the most important problems faced by our societies: climate change, injustice, innovation and the future of work. The project, originated and piloted by University College London (UCL) Professor Wendy Carlin, aims to update economics education to meet the challenges of today.

The School of Business has used the CORE learning materials in English for a few years already. The first chapters of the Talous learning material were published in November 2020, and the first 16 chapters are now available in Finnish. Totalling over 1,000 pages, the entire book will be released during this spring. The materials are accessible to everyone online. Helsinki GSE is responsible for the Finnish translation that has been funded by Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and the Bank of Finland.

The CORE learning materials tackle economy and economic activities with a new phenomenon-based approach. The materials have been used in about 300 universities in at least 57 countries.

‘It’s important that as many people as possible have at least some kind of understanding of how the economy works. Another problem at the moment is that economists often do not recognise their field from the academic descriptions concerning economics’, says Juuso Välimäki, Professor of Economics at the School of Business.

‘Many of our seminars are open to everyone. By participating in them and exploring the CORE materials, many people could update their understanding of economics to match the current times. Nowadays, economics is pretty empirical; we use statistical and quantitative methods to measure causal relationships in economics. Research subjects vary from how your neighbourhood can impact your kids’ success at school to how paid parental leave impacts the gender gap in employment.’

Explore the CORE materials: https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/fi/text/0-3-contents.html

Economics seminars open to everyone: https://www.helsinkigse.fi/events/

Further information:
Professor Juuso Välimäki
Aalto University School of Business
+358 403538182
[email protected]