Document Type
Working Paper
Publication Date
1-5-2026
JEL Codes
A00, A20, A22, B00
Abstract
Economists of a certain age will remember a world in which the history of economic thought (HET) was alive and flourishing. Today, that is not the case. One little-noticed consequence of the elimination of HET from graduate programs in the United States is that the HET course is an endangered species at the undergraduate level. It is not, however, extinct. This paper offers a brief history of HET as a course and explores the extent of the diminution in HET courses in the undergraduate liberal arts college curriculum in the United States. Roughly 40% of 146 schools have a HET course in their catalog, but only 20% actively teach the course. I predict a continued decline in the near future, but HET will not completely disappear. An Excel workbook with all results, HETUndergradLA2025.xlsm, is available at dub.sh/HETdata.
Author's RePEc Short ID
pba1125
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4822-038XRecommended Citation
Humberto Barreto, 2026. "The Long Goodbye of the History of Economic Thought Course in Liberal Arts Colleges in the United States," Working Papers 2026-01, DePauw University.
Comments
I thank participants at the First University of Austin (UATX) Winter Institute for the History and Philosophy of Economics for helpful comments and feedback.