Janneth Zonia Leyva Zegarra is a professor of economics at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. After using the Spanish translation of CORE’s The Economy 1.0 to teach undergraduates for several years and developing her own unique way of teaching with CORE, Janneth kindly took time out of her schedule to share with us reflections on her teaching style, economics teaching in Peru, and the significance of CORE’s approach to economics.
Hi Janneth, thanks for joining us. Tell us about your background and when you began teaching with CORE.
I joined Pontifical Catholic University of Peru as a full time professor in economics in 2019, but I first heard about CORE in 2020. I loved the international community and found the push to change the way we teach economics refreshing. I started using CORE in the second semester. Between 2021 and 2024 I took a break from teaching to work on a PhD program. I resumed teaching with CORE in 2024.
What is economics teaching like in Peru?
The first course in Economics is usually taught in a traditional way. Starting with the analysis of resource allocation through markets, then looking at the role of the State in the economy, commonly emphasising first its distortionary effect on efficiency . The way we teach macroeconomics doesn’t take advantage of developments in the discipline. We need to update that.
CORE’s historical perspective on cultural issues is new. As is its introduction of frontier analysis tools for undergraduates. I hope more professors join the initiative. CORE’s approach helps instructors reflect more on what we’re teaching and why we’re teaching it. That’s one of its biggest strengths.
CORE changed the way I think about and teach economics, but I’m continuing to evolve and build on CORE to teach in my own style.
Could you explain more about your teaching method?
My methodology is complementary to CORE. I prefer not to simply repeat the text. I mix and match units, starting with the third, and including pieces of the second. I prefer to start with models that explain the economic approach to understanding individual decisions beyond markets. In my classes I emphasise that economics is an approach to understanding human behaviour, and not a discipline that has a defined set of phenomena that should be understood using only economics.
I’ve reinforced this approach especially this past year, in which I’ve taught students most of whom will ultimately choose other careers. They often think that economics is about decisions in the market, or macroeconomics, like big decisions on monetary and fiscal policy. I want to transmit that economics is something richer than that, and that it’s a discipline that is permeable to the contributions of other social sciences and other sciences in general. CORE does a great job communicating that.
There are two main concepts that I constantly work on in class. One is the concept of economic rent and the associated concept of opportunity cost. The other is pareto efficiency.
Usually, when we communicate the concept of economic rent, we have in mind certain motivations, certain constraints. But with a broader approach on human motivations and restrictions, it becomes a more powerful concept. I try to communicate economic rent using real, daily phenomena. Students, and people in general, have a normative approach about what economic rationality means. It is striking for them to realise that a rational decision can imply passing on opportunities to make money and choosing to do other things. Even things that imply spending money. Yet it’s something that we do every day.
I developed an example where an undergraduate who had a commitment with a high school student to teach them about a subject (something that undergraduates often do to earn some money) gets a call from a friend inviting them to a concert that clashes with the lesson. In that context, I asked them what they would do if they were that teacher, and the lesson cannot be rescheduled.
That example explores ways of thinking about what we gain and lose when making a decision. Choosing to teach the class means receiving payment for that lesson and the satisfaction of fulfilling an agreement, but also comes with other direct costs, like the effort needed to teach well, which could be conditioned by the characteristics of the student. Choosing to teach a class also imply that the student will forfeit the net benefit of her reserve option. This helps students understand how a seemingly simple example is a complex human interaction.
We need to reflect more on what pareto efficiency means. When we say that there is a trade-off between equity and efficiency, we usually think about the traditional selfish motivations economics imposes on humans. But if we consider that equity is also relevant for people, then there is less of a trade-off, because we can improve individual results as we get to more equitable outcomes.
In the first class, I ask them what the main problems facing our economy are. I develop models using the tools introduced in units three and four of CORE to address their views. I impress upon my students the utility of using economic models to structure explanations, but also that they should reflect on how assumptions about human behaviour impact the models.
How does your teaching style differ from teaching with traditional economics textbooks?
Traditional textbooks don’t reflect as much on the assumptions traditional models rely on. They usually don’t communicate what we’ve learned about behavioural economics, which is something that CORE emphasises a lot. My students sometimes think it’s irrational when humans don’t behave like models predict. CORE helps them develop a clearer idea of what economic rationality means.
But I do have some issues with the way the concept of Pareto efficiency is used in CORE. If humans care about things beyond what traditional models incorporate and Pareto efficiency builds on assumptions about well-being, the set of efficient outcomes change with our assumptions of participants motivations. I’d like to see the CORE text being more explicit about issues with traditional thought on the trade-off between equity and efficiency.
What is the overall landscape of economics education like in Peru? What are the main challenges?
There’s a structural problem regarding the quality of learning in basic education. As a result, most first-year students struggle with the graphical analysis used in CORE. Although I try to reinforce an intuitive approach to models in class, more support is needed to address the difficulties students have in mastering the basic mathematical tools that enable them to construct these models. There is an opportunity to create introductory textbooks, designed for high school students, to help develop their ability to use mathematics as a language.
How challenging is it to update the way economics is taught in Peru?
From my perspective, the main resistance in basic and more advanced courses is against moving away from the assumption of selfishly motivated agents that characterises a large part of our economic models. Despite the notable and recognised contributions of behavioural economics, the consideration of more human and therefore more complex motivations continues to be reserved for specific courses on the subject.
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