Rethinking Economics, the movement changing how the subject is taught

"These disparate strands came together in early 2013 at the London School of Economics with the inaugural meeting of Rethinking Economics a student-led organisation that has gone on to challenge the way economics is taught at universities around the world. That first meeting was a bit chaotic, recalls Yuan Yang, one of the group's founders and a Labour MP since 2024."

"It was just after our final exams and it was all a bit intense. But I was really surprised with how many students turned up not just from the LSE but from other universities as well. Yang, who was studying a masters in economics at the time, said the first meeting was held on a bit of shoestring, dependent on volunteers and some real acts of kindness from family and friends as well as some of the LSE's leading academics."

After the 2008 global financial crash, Harvard students walked out of an introductory economics class for teaching a narrow view that perpetuated inequality. Manchester students formed a post-crash economics society, criticizing rigid mathematical formulas disconnected from real-world fallout. Similar student actions spread globally, demanding a broader, more questioning syllabus. In early 2013 Rethinking Economics held an inaugural meeting at the London School of Economics to challenge university economics teaching. The meeting was volunteer-led, shoe-string funded, attended by students from multiple universities, supported by some leading academics, and remembered by founder Yuan Yang as chaotic but well-attended.

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