Fostering Student Agency in Intermediate Microeconomics Courses

Abstract

Three papers presented at the 2005 AEA Annual Meetings session on “A Fresh Look at the Future of the Intermediate Microeconomics Course” examined the current state of the course at a range of institutions (Hoyt, Marshall, O’Sullivan and Patel (2025)), proposed content changes to increase relevance for students (Halliday and Mamunuru (2025)), and detailed methods for supporting students’ sense of belonging and growth mindset (Jacobson and Viceisza (2025)). I discuss these papers through the lens of student agency: rather than treat the teacher as “producer” and the student as “consumer,” I propose that we think of the course as an incomplete contract in which the teacher is the “principal” and students are “agents.” From this perspective, relevance, belonging, and growth mindset become ways to encourage student effort and boost learning productivity.