This post is written by Cristina, one of the students I interviewed this year for my book. Having just finished writing my economics chapter, I was particularly interested to learn about Cristina’s experiences of doing a double degree in Economics and International Development. In this post, Cristina talks about her having grown up in post-crisis Spain as a motivation to study Economics but realizing that it was International Development that gave her the necessary critical perspective on it.
Hello, my name is Cristina, and I am a very recent Economics and International Development graduate from Sussex. This combination of subjects was an option whose implications I did not fully understand, until the very first day I arrived at Sussex from Spain and started the course.
Why study economics?
I knew the reason I wanted to study economics: my whole life had always revolved around it. It presented itself in most of my life experiences, many times with or without explanation, while also happening to most of my generation. The economic financial crisis of 2007 hit Spain very forcefully when we were mere kids, but still mature enough to understand what was happening around.
There was not a friend I knew that any of their family members weren’t unemployed. I recall most of my friends, from the age of 9, were already familiar with terms such as stock market, bank bailouts, and risk premium.
Therefore, while choosing what to study as an undergraduate degree, I immediately decided I wanted to study Economics, as I felt the need to understand the reasons for most of the events I experienced growing up. I also realised that I needed to study something complementary to truly understand the effects economic activity have had worldwide, choosing, therefore, to undertake International Development as a joint honours degree. The need to study both subjects and the clear difference between the two degrees (Economics and ID) started to be significantly noticeable once I started the course.
On one hand, studying Economics was an absolute enjoyment from the start. It was fascinating. Even though it sounds corny, it felt like studying a living and working piece of philosophy. Everything said in class, even though it was obscured with difficult and complicated symbology and terms, once uncovered its meaning, just made sense. Every term, formula or concept formed part of this big system that worked perfectly. No matter what question or part you didn’t fully understand, it was perfectly explainable by economic theory. It was intriguing, interesting, and above all, very satisfying. The greatest example for me of this was being able to understand one day the Taylor’s Rule, represented by the following formula:
it = r* + π* + β(πt – π*) + γ(yt – yN)
Even though at first it seemed confusing and intimidating, once you understood what each value and concept meant, the formula was easy to read and interpret, and therefore easy to understand its use. The formula simply translates to the notion that nominal interest rate (it) equals the real interest rate (the interest rate of goods and services), inflation, and the difference there is between current inflation and economic activity to the target inflation and full employment level. This makes the interest rate, the most needed, sought and used tool in economic policy to be easily manipulated to the needs of the economy. Once this concept is imparted in class, macroeconomics works as this effective subject which you can tweak and change to make it work inch-perfect.
Why study international development?
Development, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. The course from the start was made of very different, very complex modules that were difficult to see as interconnected. While one module would focus on British colonialism, the next ones worked on issues such as the Washington Consensus, Palestine, intersectionality, the SDGs, or randomised controlled trials.
Furthermore, each issue uncovered deeply rooted and incredibly painful-to-study societal problems. With each class, you would explore elements that would shake to the core beliefs and concepts that you had never questioned. Understanding the economic, social and political reasons for most of our society’s main problems was a hard and difficult process to undertake.
However, at the end of this learning process, you were able to interpret issues in a deeper, more multifaceted way. Poverty could no longer be interpreted as a sad isolated incident, but the consequence of a confluence of factors, much of which stemmed from race, class, gender, religion, or nationality. Soon enough you were able to see the connection between all the different development modules and the global interconnection of injustice and structural violent systems.
What happens when you combine both subjects?
This began to impact my Economics learning. Suddenly, the perfect functioning of the economy wasn’t real anymore. How can something that is proclaimed to be the exact and perfect solution to our problems sustain a world with such imperfections? How can these two realities co-exist? I then realised the Economics we were being taught was neither real, neither perfect, neither moral. Taking it back to the Taylor’s Rule, the cornerstone of economic policy, it wasn’t anymore this understand-able element. What does a natural rate of unemployment mean? Why is Economic theory based on a natural rate of unemployment (apart from the one needed to account for people trying to change jobs)? Does it mean that some people need to be unemployed so the economy sustains itself? This can further be associated with the neoliberal Walrasian Equilibrium notion where the market is in itself efficient and self-sufficient. When studying Macroeconomics 2 you learn the natural rate of unemployment is the rate at which the real wage in wage setting equals the real wage implied by price setting. This directly translates to the notion that if the market is to be sustained by supply and demand rules, people are going to be left out of having a job, a salary, and the means necessary to uphold a decent life. It further continues with the principle ‘The lower the unemployment rate is, the higher are the wages’. This, if analysed just translates to the notion ‘that the larger the unemployed pool is, the more desperate they are, and hence, the lower we can pay them.’
These premises were taught in class as notions that cannot be discussed or put to question, as they are the basis to our economic science, and taught as fixed theories as if it were Physics or Chemistry. Neoliberal economics are elements that need to be challenged, as most of these principles, based on perfect ideals, can, and do cause irreparable harm if put into practice.
I have only started to question these beliefs due to my International Development modules and the knowledge they imparted. Being able to study the effects of economic policy made me able to question economic policy, and the effects it caused in not only developing, but also developed countries, all over the World. The necessity to impart different academic aspects into University is crucial if wanting to acquire students with a critical and thorough vision of what they have studied.