Economics 101 meets Buddhism

I recently spoke with Barbezat about his approach.

Excerpts:

How did you get the idea for this course?

I thought it would be interesting to get students to become aware of what they’re doing when they’re consuming in a context of economic modeling rather than talking abstractly about the typical consumer.

How do you get them to think about that?

We do contemplative exercises. I have them sit in class and become aware of their breath. I ask them, ‘Now sit with a sense of satisfaction.” Then, after a little while, they return to their breaths and then I ask them to sit with a sense of happiness. Then I have them jot down what they saw. There are significant experiential differences between the two, [satisfaction and happiness]. In general, students reported satisfaction was felt more in the body, as a sense of calm and ease. Happiness was more mental, a memory or a happy time.

They also look at what seems to affect their mood over time. Every day, three times a day, they write down a mood log. ‘I’m happy, I just ate a nice meal, I’m unhappy, I’ve been doing homework.”

I tell students over and over again, I have no idea how much they should consume, but I think as we become more aware of what we’re doing as we do it, I think there will be less anxiety, less “pursuit” of happiness.

What is the goal of those exercises?

That informs a whole section of readings from psychology and economics about the measurement of well-being. Most of the papers [on happiness] we’re looking at use subjective well-being data. They ask a series of questions about your life satisfaction, then you report how you feel. All those questions are aggregated and transformed into an index number. I wanted them to think about the nature of those questions and how they might influence people’s responses.

Do you think students’ well-being is being affected by the recession?

Yes. They see the college has taken a large hit on the endowment, and a lot of operating costs are funded that way. It affects staff, faculty, and students, including potential lay-offs and future financial aid packages.

Then, they’re concerned about the short and long run impact of entering a job market in a recession. The ability to get the kind of job you thought you would, and benefits, maybe income will be affected. They have a sense of that.