Empowering students to compare ways economists think: the case of the housing bubble

Students are expected to think critically about economic processes but not about the way economists explain those processes. They are generally powerless to do the latter. This paper illustrates a causal mapping technique to enable students to translate narrative accounts of various economists' models into a common framework that facilitates comparison and promotes informed discussion. Called the feedback method, it is demonstrated with a comparison of three accounts of the recent US housing price bubble.