The Principles of Economics

As the deadline of the final day to add or drop courses rapidly approaches, I know many of you who flood Sanders Theatre for Social Analysis 10 (a.k.a. Ec 10) lectures will have lingering doubts about your course selection. In the interest of full information, let me offer some thoughts as a veteran of the course.

Ec 10 is a stunningly popular class. It usually tops the list of the largest classes. With around 800 students enrolled each year, approximately one-half of the undergraduate population will have taken it by graduation. Yet this enormous popularity is not due to a reputation of excellence. Rather, as the CUE Guide reports, course scores hover around 3.5 while professor scores stick close to 3.0s.

Most who have taken the course will recite a litany of complaints: The class is too big, the lectures are boring, it's difficult to find a teaching fellow who can explain things well, the course is taught completely in section, the problem sets are busywork and the lectures fail to capture student interest.

Most sections have more than 20 people, and are run a lot like a high school class. With the cost of attending school at $35,400 per year, half of us end up paying almost $5,000 for the privilege of falling asleep in Sanders Theatre during lectures or sitting in the back of a crammed section room straining to see the blackboard.

Despite all of these hassles, I listened in section. I did my best to stay awake in lecture. I tried to ignore George F. Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein's neoclassical bias and his refusal to acknowledge other viewpoints. I got lucky and had a good section leader (one of the few, according to my other friends in the class) who took extra time to explain things for me. So I managed to learn a thing or two about monopolies.

A monopoly is inefficient because, with only one supplier in a market, the monopolist can set price way above the market equilibrium point (E), and quantity far below E. Such a situation means that the price of the good or service is artificially elevated, while quality usually suffers. For those unfamiliar with the lingo, the gist is simple (and oft-repeated in Professor Feldstein's lectures): monopoly bad, free trade good.

And yet, flipping through the course book this summer, I was struck by a glaring fact. I noticed that, despite the many lectures on the necessity for open markets and a deep-seated devotion to the principle of fair competition, there are no alternatives offered to Ec 10. Think about it: Professor Feldstein has a monopoly on the introduction to economics at Harvard College.

Like many monopolies, Ec 10 controls a good that is in high demand: Every student wishing to take any other economics class must first take Ec 10. Additionally, as it is also a Core class, hundreds of undergrads flock to Ec 10 each year to fulfill their Social Analysis requirement. And hundreds more take the class simply to obtain a basic knowledge of economics, a skill crucial to the success of the many consultants and I-bankers that Harvard churns out.

We learned in Ec 10 that monopolies harm consumers. Quality tends to suffer. The monopolist has no direct incentive to improve the product offered. What if Harvard offered an alternative introductory economics class, forcing the two to compete for student attendance? Perhaps then Ec 10 would have to reduce section size and spice up the curriculum to attract more "customers."

Professor Feldstein speaks vehemently on the need for open markets and free trade--but will he face the competition that his own lectures demand?

Shauna L. Shames '01 is a social studies and women's studies concentrator in Currier House. She was enrolled in Social Analysis 10 during the 1998-1999 school year.