Introductory Economics Textbooks Review 2025 [Work in progress]

Assessing the empirical accuracy of standardised economics teaching material

“I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws, if I can write its economics textbooks.”

Paul Samuelson (1990, p. ix)

In this project, leading experts review the extent to which globally used introductory economics textbooks are in line with empirical findings on key topics. 

The project has recently started and the purpose of the website is to already share the plan with (potential) collaborators. Advice, help and support are very welcome.

Methodology

The analysis of textbooks by the experts will done as a blind review. This means that when the experts review the relevant sections of the textbooks, they do not know from which textbooks the texts come. We analyse textbooks that are used in introductory economics university courses around the world. The focus in terms of topics is on recent insights and empirical results that have societal relevance.

Each of the textbooks are scored by leading experts from 1 to 5 (1 being very poor and 5 being very good) on the following question: Is the presentation of the topic in the textbook in line with empirical findings?

  1. Very poor (i.e. The presentation is fully in contradiction with empirical findings)

  2. Poor (i.e. The presentation is mostly in contradiction with empirical findings)

  3. Neither good nor poor (i.e. The presentation is partially in line and partially in contradiction with empirical findings)

  4. Good (i.e. The presentation is mostly in line with empirical findings)

  5. Very good (i.e. The presentation is fully in line with empirical findings)

What we are not measuring here:

  • How much empirical evidence is discussed

  • Didactic quality of the explanations of the topic

Textbooks

To give an idea of how the results will be presented when the study has been conducted, we show some illustrative mock-up tables with random scores. 

Here we will show the textbooks that are analysed and the average scores (from 1 very poor to 5 very good) that they have received based on the analysis of leading experts on key societal topics. You can click on each of the textbooks to see the results on every topic for that textbook. 

Topics

Here we will show the topics that are analysed and the average scores across the ten textbooks that they have received based on the analysis of leading experts. You can click on each of the topics to see the results for every textbook for that topic.

Summary table

Here we will show the scores for each textbook by topic. You can click on each of the topics and textbooks to see their results. When a textbook does not discuss the topic, we note “n.d.”.