Whether making everyday choices in the grocery store, contemplating the cost of college or voting in an election, economic thinking can help us analyze the world around us to make more informed decisions.
But how can we scale economic literacy? Economics for Everyone (E4E), initially conceived as an approachable economics course for University of Chicago students in any major, has since grown into a free 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 is making economics available to a broad swath of users—a step toward everyone, everywhere.
“E4E is designed to ignite curiosity in students at the dawn of their economic exploration,” said Prof. John List, who developed the first courses for the initiative in 2017 with Prof. Emeritus Steve Levitt.
“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 course is managed by the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, a world-renowned destination for economic research and innovative economics pedagogy. After its initial success, E4E expanded to include a macroeconomics version taught for several years by Prof. Greg Kaplan, who will now be joined in the classroom this spring by Prof. Robert Shimer.
The positive reception of the courses inspired the department and faculty leadership to scale their approach to economic education to a public audience. This includes 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 program published its first videos 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. Users can tailor their engagement to their personal goals or learning preferences, following either a curated path through the micro-syllabus or a more curiosity-based approach browsing 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). This Chilean university has strong UChicago ties—three of its five founders studied economics here.
The collaboration leverages the E4E digital platform with tailored and localized academic resources for high school teachers and students. Through this partnership, UChicago will also 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 said. “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 explained that such 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 video integration into the classroom. This would serve larger goals of working with schools 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.
With the recent expansion on multiple fronts, the team behind the initiative is driving ahead with their mission to bring UChicago economics to the world.
“We are now poised to bring E4E’s unique approach to economics to more learners than ever before,” said Kaplan. “This is only the beginning, and the road ahead is filled with exciting possibilities.”
—Adapted from a story originally published by Economics for Everyone.
