Issue 32, February 2023

This paper proposes an applied and innovative methodology for the teaching of the discipline of Economic Policy in university degrees. On the one hand, the project helps to establish a clear difference not only in the content but also in the way in which the subjects of Macroeconomics and Economic Policy are taught. On the other hand, this training technique, based on gamification, is attractive to the student and promotes greater student participation in the learning process. It also facilitates the identification of theory with reality and promotes a series of skills in students, essential for improving their employability, which traditional teaching seems to leave aside.

This paper proposes a systematic approach to the teaching of fiscal-monetary interactions that follows the view of one of the fathers of the Fiscal Price Level Theory (TFP), Eric Leeper. The main advantage of this approach is its simplicity, which makes it particularly suitable for undergraduate students and non-specialists. It relies on a two-graph device to show that fiscal and monetary policies are always determined simultaneously and that their effects on the economy always depend on each other’s behavior. It is straightforward to see that in a conventional monetarist world (Regime M), the central bank manages to control inflation as long as the fiscal authority does its job of ensuring that government debt does not grow too much. By contrast, in an alternative fiscally dominant regime (Regime F), fiscal policy determines the price level (and inflation) in the short run, and the optimal monetary stance is to keep the policy rate constant, since, if the central bank tries to fight fiscally determined inflation, it will worsen fiscal sustainability and increase future inflation. Thus, banishing from the minds of economics graduates in Spanish universities the idea that, in normal times, fiscal and monetary policies have independent effects on economic activity is of vital importance and it is one of the main objectives of our work. As a fundamental complement to our model, an exercise of practical implementation of our proposal within the Spanish University System is carried out, discussing how it would be adapted to the curricula designed at national level, and providing concrete information, to potential teachers interested in its future use, on the probable reaction of the students and their degree of learning/performance.

The present work shows a learning experience based on the game, specifying a strategy known as Escape room. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the possible advantages that game-based learning provides in the educational field, alluding to the need to innovate within the teaching and methodological activity, being in line with the student's profile, being necessary that teachers explore new tools to increase motivation, participation and commitment in students. For this, this teaching strategy is applied to contents related to the analysis and synthesis of the phenomena related to the regulation of markets by the public sector, in this case, a monetary authority. Finally, we find that the students are mostly active, participatory and with greater interest towards the assimilation and application of the contents.

The systems that support modern and extensive Welfare States continue to be key for the promotion of higher levels of economic efficiency in developed countries and for the coverage of many economic and social risks in the face of a very changing map of citizens' needs. The new handbook coordinated by Professor Luis Ayala of the UNED focussed on the Economics of the Welfare State offers an interesting detailed and in-depth analysis of the role of efficiency and equity in each policy, which makes it a key and updated guide to public policy decisions in the 21st century.