By Sarah Steimer
Whether making everyday choices in the grocery store, contemplating the cost of college, or voting in an election, economic thinking can provide valuable insights. When we consider the brisk pace of change, economics can help us make more informed decisions and analyze the world around us.
But how can we scale economic literacy? Economics for Everyone (E4E), initially conceived as an approachable economics course for UChicago students in any major, has since grown into a multimedia initiative for anyone interested in learning the fundamentals of economic thinking. Now, with the release of more than 30 new microeconomics videos and resources in English and Spanish, the initiative has made important progress towards making economics available to a broad swath of users: everyone, everywhere.
The Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics is a world-renowned destination for economic research and innovative economics pedagogy. Professor John List and Professor Emeritus Steve Levitt developed the groundbreaking UChicago E4E course in 2017. The UChicago course then expanded to include a macroeconomics version taught for several years by Professor Greg Kaplan, who will now be joined in the classroom this spring by Professor Robert Shimer.
E4E is designed to ignite curiosity in students at the dawn of their economic exploration,” List explains. “By distilling economics to its core principles, free from the constraints of complex mathematics and technical language, we empower students to engage with the foundational ideas that drive economic behavior, helping to shed light on some of life’s deepest market mysteries.
The success of the E4E courses inspired the department and faculty leadership to scale this approach to economic education to a public audience: lifelong learners, current students, those looking for professional development, and high school and university teachers. With generous seed funding from an anonymous donor, the department launched the E4E media initiative now led by Kaplan, List, and Shimer.
The first E4E digital offering is a custom microeconomics curriculum developed by List. Though the first videos dropped in fall 2023, the curriculum now includes more than 30 core videos covering key economic ideas and more than 25 explainer videos that introduce the math and mechanics behind the economic concepts. The videos, which are mostly five to 12 minutes long, are taught by UChicago faculty and affiliated scholars.
The microeconomics curriculum and videos are all available for free with registration on the Economics for Everyone website, a one-stop platform for students and educators who want to make use of these resources — with more to come, including a digital macroeconomics offering led by Kaplan and Shimer. The content is easy to navigate, regardless of the user’s goals or learning preferences, enabling both a curated approach through the micro syllabus or — in true UChicago form — a curiosity-based approach through the video library.
The initiative is also connecting with potential learners through videos on social media. The E4E video shorts, available on Instagram (@econforeveryone) and on the website, are humorous 30-second videos that introduce key economic ideas and definitions in memorable ways.
In addition to the launch of the new videos, E4E continues to gain steam globally with its first international partner. The development of Spanish resources, including the Spanish website and video subtitling, was sparked by E4E Chile: a new strategic partnership between UChicago and Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), a Chilean university with strong UChicago ties — three of the five founders studied economics here. The collaboration leverages the E4E digital platform with tailored and localized academic resources for high school teachers and students. In this partnership, UChicago will provide academic oversight and support program evaluation. A dedicated academic team from UDD will integrate the E4E resources and create practical activities tailored to specific high schools, lead teacher training, and leverage UDD professors and experts in the classroom.
“Partnering with UDD marks a significant E4E milestone as we expand our reach and impact globally,” Shimer says. “We look forward to fostering more international collaborations to further customize our resources and meet the unique needs of different regions.”
E4E Executive Director Tali Paransky Griffin says that partnerships will play a critical role in scaling the initiative. In addition to global partners, the E4E team is interested in distribution partners to increase reach and is developing educator resources to facilitate E4E video integration into the classroom. It’s part of the larger goals of developing school partnerships to support teachers at the high school and university levels, as well as researching the academic and non-academic outcomes for students who have E4E as one of their first exposures to economics.
“We are now poised to bring E4E’s unique approach to economics to more learners than ever before. This is only the beginning, and the road ahead is filled with exciting possibilities.”
–Professor Greg Kaplan
The expansion of the digital microeconomics curriculum, the investment in the English and Spanish platform, and the strategic partnership with UDD all illustrate the momentum behind E4E to bring UChicago economics to everyone, everywhere.