Yes, and yes. The two questions asked in the title of this paper were prompted by an invitation to the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education to participate with eleven other disciplines in a national review of arts and sciences majors initiated by the Association of American Colleges (AAC). The goal of this Project on Study-in-Depth was to evaluate the major within the liberal arts curriculum, highlighting connections and interactions among disciplines. In the process we examined the major in considerable detail. The result was a lengthy report,1 from which the present paper abstracts key findings, focusing on the purpose of the major, recommendations for improvement, and methods for effecting change. In compiling the AAC we became painfully aware that while our collective experience in the field of economics education provides us with considerable background, the representativeness of our judgments required checking. To this end, seminars were given at several colleges and universities and over 100 copies of the were circulated to other economists, including leading economic educators; feedback was incorporated in subsequent versions. In addition, in May 1990 a survey of faculty at 127 colleges and universities was undertaken with the goal of vetting and evaluating our main conclusions and recommendations. As a part of that survey, respondents were invited to complete a report card (A,...,F) based on twelve criteria evaluating the effectiveness of the major at their institutions.2 Tabulated on a 4.0 grading scale, the major earned an overall grade of B -. An analysis of the detailed statistical tabulations and openended responses to some thirty-seven questions suggested how it might be improved. In this paper we argue that the quality of the major is suboptimal, a situation probably resulting from two decades of expanding enrollments and the relative popularity of the major, which occurred just when demands on faculty for research and other responsibilities greatly increased, and when college administrations tightened contDiscussants: David Colander, Middlebury College; Claudia Goldin, Harvard University; Alan Blinder, Princeton University; Eric Hanushek, University of Rochester.

After economics was included in the Goals 2000 Educate America Act in 1994, the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE) constructed a coalition of organizations to write voluntary content standards to guide economics instruction in American schools.' The coalition includes representatives from the NCEE and its network of affiliated councils and centers, the National Association of Economic Educators, the Foundation for Teaching Economics, and the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education. The goal of the coalition is to write content standards for the teaching of economics in grades 1-12. Such as developed for other disciplines, are not standards in the usual use of the word. Rather than identifying required performance levels on specified criteria, these standards specify the criteria. As such, the standards consist of what economists usually call principles. They are, in fact, the fundamental propositions of economics. To avoid confusion among teachers, however, the standards-writing committee calls these principles National disciplinary content standards are not mandates from the federal government. Rather, they are a resource for states and local school districts, for individual schools, and for teachers, who are responsible for specifying and integrating the curriculum into their schools. Content standards have public-good characteristics: they are nonrivalrous in consumption, and it is difficult to preclude access to them. In addition, their production relies on fixed development costs rather than variable reproduction costs, implying substantial scale economies. To develop similar standards at the state or local level would duplicate efforts. Consequently, there is a case (as is argued in standard 16) for collective provision of national standards. There is a practical reason to develop national economics content standards as well. Without these standards, some states may omit economics from their curriculum entirely. Some may give economics cursory attention, or write vague standards that are difficult to implement, or focus their economics standards on insignificant content. Some curriculum designs may include other subjects (e.g., personal finance, business, or marketing) under the economics rubric, thereby marginalizing economics. Voluntary national standards increase the probability that economics is included in school curricula. Without them, economics risks the prospect of being dropped from the curriculum. Teachers responsible for economics instruction are often overwhelmed when asked to teach a subiect in which they have little t Discussants: Cecilia Conrad, Pomona College; W. Lee Hansen, University of Wisconsin; Robert Highsmith, Pace University.