This pedagogy category is mis-named. I really am posting content ideas for teaching here, not ideas about methods of teaching.
From two recent letters to the Globe, in response to Adrian Boutureira's 11/5/07 op-ed piece on how free trade cuts manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts:
1. Kamran Dadkhah, an assoc prof of economics at Northeastern, writes that Mass lost 80,000 manuf jobs in the 1990-93 period, before the implementation of NAFTA, and has lost 120,000 in the 13 years since. He writes that the growth of manufacturing jobs ended in 1969, and job losses began in 1979. Manufacturing job loss nationwide from 1993-2006 was 2.7 million, but in that time the index of industrial production (whatever that is) has risen 62% and the value of manufacturing output in constant dollars has increased by 54%.
2. Andreas Waldkirch, an asst professor of economics at Colby, adds that it is misleading to attribute manufacturing job loss to NAFTA, because it has happened in ALL industrialized countries, while the number of services sector jobs has increased and more than compensates (not the same wages, though, Professor Waldkirch!).
I find myself more and more interested in this question of sectoral shift, especially looked at on a geographical basis.