Professor Brunetti, how important is education for the economy?
Education, or human capital, is central to the development of all economies. For Switzerland, it is one of the main reasons for the country’s high level of prosperity by international standards. This is partly due to the country’s dual education system. Education is becoming increasingly important for individuals too, as people take on many different roles throughout their working lives.
As a textbook author and professor at the University of Bern, what do you think the future of learning will look like?
Since I converted my lecture notes into a textbook entitled “Volkswirtschaftslehre – Eine Einführung für die Schweiz” (Economics – An Introduction for Switzerland) some 20 years ago, my perception of learning has changed – but not fundamentally.
The internet had been around for a while back then and was already having an impact on teaching and learning. One example that springs to mind is the Swiss National Bank’s revolutionary online education service “iconomix”. Since 2007, it has provided supplementary teaching modules for business education at secondary and vocational schools.
What new developments do you foresee for teachers and students?
The rise of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools could redefine the way we learn. However, it is still unclear how exactly.
For example, I can imagine lecturers asking small classes or seminar participants to prepare a topic with the help of ChatGPT, and then discussing the results in the group. I think it’s important that the students are given guidance on how to use the information from such technology.
How does the content of textbooks change over time?
In economics, some mainstream knowledge remains relevant for decades. On the other hand, there are some topics that become less prominent for a while but then resurface in the curriculum again due to current events. One such topic is inflation. For a long time, it was consistently low and hardly seen as a problem during that period. But it came back after the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why I have devoted more attention to this recurring topic again in the new edition of my economics book “Volkswirtschaftslehre” (Economics).
What happens to knowledge that is not mainstream?
New foundational research can take many years to find its way into textbooks. But this is a good thing, since new findings first have to prove reliable; one has to be sure that a research result is robust enough to be relevant in a wide range of contexts and institutional settings.
Thus, the teaching content changes only gradually, and most of what is written in textbooks has already been known for a very long time and is considered mainstream.
How do you teach, and what role do digital tools play?
I structure my lectures in a way that allows me to explain theories and interconnections to the students at my own pace. I’m quite old school in this sense. My experience with PowerPoint is that it usually conveys too much information too quickly, making it hard for students to absorb the material. Also, using PowerPoint gives me less freedom to deviate from the plan if I notice during the lesson that a deeper explanation or additional practical examples are needed.
I cannot image fully digital lectures becoming the norm in future. Where do you think digital tools are useful?
It makes sense to offer textbooks in both printed and digital form. Students can choose between a physical book and an e-reader – whatever works best for them.
Tools such as the hep Verlag app, with its digital flashcards, are helpful for rememberingkey terms. But that alone is not enough. In economics, understanding the concepts and how they relate is more important than simply memorising terms. That’s why I believe textbooks will remain essential.
I also see value in videos that incorporate navigation elements, self-tests and further information as interactive elements. A few years ago, as part of the flashMOOCs project at the University of Bern, we produced an interactive video to help understand the role of banks and financial crises.
Digitalisation also offers a number of advantages in the production of textbooks. These advancements make it much easier for me to update my books for new editions.
As a father, what advice do you give your children about education?
When it comes to economics and learning strategies, I leave my children alone (laughs). They have to determine for themselves what works best for them.
However, I do ask them which teachers have had the biggest influence on them.
Personally, I was influenced more by good textbooks. The best in economics are almost always written by Anglo-Saxon authors. Unlike many authors in the German-speaking world, they write – to put it bluntly – with the goal of helping students to understand the material, rather than demonstrating how smart they are. This is the only way to get new students interested in the subject.
In economics, there are three or four simple concepts that can explain a great deal about the world. That’s what I want to promote.