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This is our monthly Office Hours episode, and this time we talk about mentorship. I taught Brooklyn, Brooklyn taught Frannie, and we cover mentorship and student development. We start with two headlines about the entry-level job market, then explore how mentoring gets passed from one person to the next, and how a professor with a full load and no budget still does it anyway. Listen if you care about advising students but don't know where to find the time, or if you're a student stuck between needing experience to get a job and needing a job to get experience.

How do you explain inflation to a student who is working two jobs and raising kids? Brian Lynch hands them a cup of water with holes in it. This week I sit down with Brian Lynch and Meena Beri, co-editors of TRECC (Teaching Resources for Economics at Community Colleges). The newsletter reaches about 3,000 economics instructors, many of whom are the only economist at their college. We talk about: Brian’s leaky cup activity for inflation and purchasing power, and building supply and demand out of pool noodles, string, and painter’s tapeMeena’s online students graphing equilibrium with crochet hooks and pipe cleanersThe props that flopped, including a tricycle and a karaoke sessionWhy today’s students seem less resilient, and what to do about it. Meena explains her procrastinator-type exercise and how it showed her that students weren’t lazy, they were anxious.Trauma-informed teaching, and why a $90 textbook can push a student out of collegeThe hierarchy in our profession between two-year and four-year faculty, and why it needs to goMeena put it best: relevance and rigor are not enemies. If you teach the only economics course most of your students will ever take, this episode is for you. https://www.decodeecon.com/articles/brian-meena

After eight years of apps, podcasts, finance influencers, and new high school requirements, the average American adult still gets about half of basic personal finance questions right. Gen Z, the generation that grew up with a budgeting app on every phone, scores 38%. Adults with the lowest scores are twice as likely to be stuck in debt and three times as likely to be financially fragile. One car repair or one missed shift, and everything wobbles. Teaching more does help. Across 76 randomized experiments with more than 160,000 people, those who got financial education knew more and made better money decisions. When Georgia, Idaho and Texas required personal finance in high school, young adults there ended up with higher credit scores and fewer missed payments. So why hasn't the overall number moved? Because knowledge fades. What doesn't fade is habit. I think we've been asking the wrong question. We keep asking what kids should know about money. The better question is when they start practicing money decisions. You don't learn to ride a bike by reading about balance, but learning about money by trial and error gets expensive. So how do kids practice somewhere safe? Dr. Stephen Day has been answering that at his own kitchen table. He and his four kids run a mini economy with real jobs, play money, a household store and, yes, taxes. In this conversation, he walks through how to set one up in an hour on a Saturday, why parents should do chores and get paid too, and what his family says instead of "opportunity cost." We also talk about how he went from academic journals to a book deal with a major publisher. More resources at www.decodeecon.com

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Brandon Sheridan is back on the show. In August, he told us the economy was moving sideways. A month and a half later, I asked him if anything had changed. Short answer: not much. Then we got into the conversation I've wanted to have with him for a while: his new paper, with 25 coauthors, on what students bring to the first day of an economics class. If you teach economics, this one is for you.

Here’s my takeaway up front: in this job market, you have to prove yourself more than ever. Friday’s jobs report was the last one before the midterm elections, and it was boring. Boring the way a cold labor market is boring. Nobody is getting laid off in big waves. Nobody is getting hired either. This week on the Decode Econ podcast, Dr. Jeni Al-Bahrani joins me to talk about what that looks like on the ground. Jeni teaches the senior capstone at Miami University. In fall 2024, about 80% of her seniors had a job lined up before graduation. This fall, it’s about 30%. Our students want accountability; they want to be challenged, but when you hold them to higher standards, they are pushing back. Jeni called them “Ouchie” moments. If you have noticed that your students are changing, this episode is for you. We also talk about the three hours at the Apple Store, a lesson in switching costs, and a server who told us the pretzels don’t come with butter, not “in this economy.” Our economy is changing, so are your students Read more on substack

This week on the Decode Econ Podcast, I sat down with Matt Holian, an economics professor at San Jose State. When Matt was department chair, he needed an honest answer to the question every recruiter gets: what jobs do econ majors actually get? He went looking for the data.  Subscribe now Using Census microdata, Matt and his coauthor Kevin Chiu tracked mid-career econ grads (ages 35 to 45, bachelor’s as their highest degree) into the jobs they actually hold. Their paper came out this year in the Journal of Economic Education.  Holian, M., & Chiu, K. (2026). Earnings, occupation, and college degree: A focus on the economics major. The Journal of Economic Education, 57(3), 326-334. Here’s what jumped out at me: Economics is a top-10 earning major, with a median income around $105,000. Seven of the other nine are engineering fields. A quarter of econ grads land in five occupations: managers, financial managers, chief executives, accountants, and personal financial advisors. The other three-quarters are everywhere. Analysts. Sales. Software developers. Teachers. Econ grads working as securities and financial services sales agents earn a median of nearly $298,000. 11.1% of econ majors are self-employed. That’s one of the highest rates of any major. So is the degree doing the work? Matt was careful here, and I respected it. The data can’t tell you that. Economics may attract people who are already comfortable with risk, and those people might have done well in any major. That might be a selection issue.  We also got into his textbook, Data and the American Dream, which teaches econometrics by having students replicate real published studies using free software.  If you’re a student picking a major, a parent paying for one, or a professor who keeps hearing “what can I even do with this?”, this episode is for you. The research Earnings, occupation, and college degree: A focus on the economics major (Holian & Chiu, 2026, Journal of Economic Education). The analysis code is archived on OpenICPSR, and you can modify it to look up the top jobs and earnings for any college major. Methods in open policy analysis: An application to California’s building energy codes (Holian, 2023, Contemporary Economic Policy). Extends the cost-benefit analysis from Chapter 2 of his book. Replication package here. The books Data and the American Dream: Contemporary Social Controversies and the American Community Survey(Holian, Palgrave Macmillan/Springer). Matt’s advice: check your library before you buy. Many university libraries give you the full PDF free through SpringerLink. Replication files on OpenICPSR. Mastering ‘Metrics by Joshua Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. “The most undergrad-friendly econometrics book out there”, with the same notation as Matt’s book, so the two pair well. Angrist’s free Mastering Econometrics video series goes with it. The data (all free) American Community Survey via IPUMS USA. The largest household survey in the U.S., with college major, occupation, and income. Current Population Survey via IPUMS CPS. The monthly survey behind the unemployment rate. Historical U.S. Census data via IPUMS USA. Goes back to the 1800s with consistent coding. ipumsr, an R package that pulls IPUMS data straight into R. The tools Posit Cloud. Run R in your browser with nothing to install. OpenICPSR. A free archive where researchers post the data and code behind published studies. Find Matt: mattholian.com For economics educators: Matt is exploring an edited volume that expands Data and the American Dream to other IPUMS datasets, one chapter per contributor. If that’s you, reach out to him. Decode Econ grows when readers share it with people they trust. If this edition made something click for you, pass it along. That’s how this works.

In a classroom, I can teach you how the world is supposed to work. Study abroad shows you how it actually works. Dr. Darshak Patel joins me to talk about taking students to Kenya to watch a universal basic income program up close, and why he would rather learn a new country alongside his students than teach one he already knows. Darshak is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kentucky. We met there as graduate students. Since then, we have written many papers together, co-founded The Econ Games, and continue working to make economics accessible to students.  In this episode, we cover The importance of global education and how to get startedHow the Econ Games StartedThe importance of community in economics Did you study abroad? Tell us in the comments what lesson stuck with you. Show Notes Art of Econ paper- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2612992 Darshak’s previous podcast appearance https://youtu.be/7clw4vTIi5I?si=cAOI4wMl4um3f3y9 The Fed Decision  https://youtu.be/NR12z1Rs07U?si=fDxdDPW6qrPbdSIU Once Brothers- ESPN 30 for 30 paper https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.4284/0038-4038-2013.299Once Brothers Documentary https://youtu.be/fVw5vnukwJ4?si=TBYhqMkE74IWvS-C

Development economics explained simply: what's the difference between the macro and micro sides of the field? Development economics sounds like a topic for "somewhere else." It's not. In my latest Decode Econ conversation, I sat down with two economists who study the same big question — how economies, and the people inside them, actually develop — from completely different altitudes. Dr. Amrita Dhar tracks capital flows into emerging markets and, closer to home, how U.S. states split the bill for K-12 schools. Dr. Shreyasee Das studies what happens inside a household in rural India after the lights come on. That second one stopped me. Shreyasee's research on rural electrification found that as women gained more independence, information, and control over their own lives, fertility often dropped — but in some households, so did stability and safety. Progress doesn't move in a straight line. Sometimes it just moves the friction somewhere else. We also got into something I think about a lot: development economics isn't just a lens for poor countries. Flint's water crisis, schools without air conditioning, sewage problems in the rural South — the same forces we study abroad are sitting here in our own zip codes. And we closed on something I want to actually do something about, not just talk about: why the researchers doing this work — especially women — aren't the ones you see on podcasts and panels. That's turning into a real project between the three of us now. Resources  Amrita’s Resources 1. Poor Economics by Abhijeet Banerjee and Esther Duflo https://amzn.to/4cIhgFd  2. Analytical Development Economics - Kaushik Basu https://amzn.to/4cBAQTG   Shreyasee 1. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach Amartya Sen's Capability Approach https://amzn.to/4gXNf5C   2. Amartya Sen's Tanner Lecture #1: Equality of What https://tannerlectures.org/lectures/equality-of-what/  3. Amartya Sen's Tanner Lecture #2: Standard of Living https://tannerlectures.org/lectures/the-standard-of-living/  4. Women's Role in Economic Development by Ester Boserup   https://amzn.to/4AbIJsZ

No homework. No midterms. No final exam. In this episode of Decode Econ, I sit down with Dr. Shishir Shakya, an economist at Appalachian State University, who redesigned his entire econometrics and statistics courses around one question: what happens if we stop preparing students for the job market of 2022 and start preparing them for 2028?We get into:Why he cut his curriculum down to the "absolute theoretical minimum" — and how that made his students learn fasterHis AI-based oral exam system that catches understanding gaps multiple-choice tests missThe uncomfortable question I pushed him on: if students can't use AI, why can professors?Why he thinks every student — marketing, supply chain, or otherwise — needs to start thinking like an engineerWhat "flourishing" means in an AI economy, and why creative destruction isn't just a threatIf you're an educator, a student, or just trying to figure out what skills actually matter in an AI-driven labor market, this conversation will change how you think about learning itself.Connect with Dr. Shishir Shakya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishir-shakya/ Subscribe to Decode Econ for weekly breakdowns of the economy and your place in it.00:49 – Intro: How AI is disrupting education02:17 – No homework, no midterms, no finals — what replaced them11:22 – The moment AI broke his old teaching model16:05 – Inside his AI-powered oral exam system24:33 – "If students can't use AI, why can professors?"39:06 – Preparing students for the job market of 2028

Startups just had a record funding quarter — $285 billion in Q1 2026. Here's what the headline doesn't tell you: 43% of that went to one company's raise, and the rest of the money is piling into AI. So if you're a student founder building anything else, what does "record year" actually mean for you?I sat down with Dr. Jeni Al Bahrani, who teaches entrepreneurship at Miami University's Farmer School of Business, and Sarah Bosse, a senior who went from a student in Dr. A's class to her TA to her mentee. We get into why entrepreneurs can't outsource economics to their accountant, the pricing mistake Sarah watched half her classmates make as a TA, why rising interest rates change what investors are willing to fund, and why TAM/SAM/SOM is really a demand-estimation problem dressed up as a pitch-deck slide. We also get into why I've stopped calling them "soft skills" — they're durable skills, and they're the actual product of a good entrepreneurship classroom.Timestamps:0:00 – Why should entrepreneurs learn economics at all?10:00 – The pricing mistake that burns first-time founders17:00 – Interest rates, the $285B funding headline, and what it means if you're not building AI33:00 – TAM/SAM/SOM: the market-sizing mistake that isn't really about math44:00 – Why "soft skills" is the wrong word, and what workforce-ready actually meansIf this episode connects to something you're building — or teaching — leave a comment and tell me what's landing.

The bond market has been sending us warning signs. I sat down with Monetary Economist EJ Ume from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business to explain what is happening and what it means to you. If you don’t already do so, make sure to connect with EJ on LinkedIn.  We would love to hear your thoughts on this conversation.  Here is what we discussed EJ walks through three forces pushing long-term yields higher EJ's research and how monetary policy is a "blunt instrument" that hits different people differently Stablecoins and what you need to know about them Career and teaching: EJ's path from Wall Street into academia Papers Referenced Ume, E. (2025). Racial Disparities and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Augmented Taylor Rules. Economic Letters, 257, 112692. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112692  Ume, E., & Williams, M.J. (2018). The Differential Impact of Monetary Policy on Blacks and Whites since the Great Recession. Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, pp 1-13. Burgess, O. & Ume, E. “Stablecoin Flows and Money Market Conditions.” Under review

Is the economy stalled, or are we about to hit a wall? Dr. Abdullah Al-Bahrani and Elon University's Dr. Brandon Sheridan break down a week of noisy data — and land on the one number nobody's talking about: you can't cut taxes and raise spending forever. Something gives.In this episode:01:12 — Why Brandon calls the economy "moving sideways," and what 1.5% GDP growth is hiding02:04 — Consumers continue to spend06:29 — The jobs report: Is -23K real, or just noisy data?09:40 — Labor force participation is a concern 19:53 — Inflation's hidden secret31:10 — "You can't reduce revenue and increase spending simultaneously when you're already in debt." Brandon's warning on where this endsFollow Decode Econ for updates on the economy and what it means to you.

In this conversation, Jack Marx and Dr. Al Bahrani discuss the Federal Reserve and the recent changes being proposed by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.  Jack and Dr. A have different views on what the correct approach is for the Fed. The discussion centers around the frequency of FOMC meetings and the importance of forward guidance.  Check out the YouTube conversation or find us on the podcast platform of your choice. I

Last week, Substack released a new feature to detect AI-written text. They partnered with Pangram to let readers scan a post and see how much of it is AI-generated. I both love and hate this update, and I want to share my views with you.As I read it, they’re attempting to solve for two problems: the rise of AI slop, and reader trust. Both are real concerns. However, there is a big difference between AI slop and AI-enhanced posts, and Substack AI score does not make a distinction between those two.With that said, Substack is upfront that Pangram isn’t perfect, just that “independent research suggests it detects AI-generated text with a high degree of accuracy.” Fine.But they also admit the actual limitation:“Pangram can only detect whether AI was used to make the text, not whether great human care went into creating it, nor whether AI tools were used as a source.”Anyone who’s spent time in higher education already knows this. Detection tools flag patterns, not quality, and not authorship in any meaningful sense. Moreover, there are good and bad uses of AI, and that nuance is lost in the Substack AI score. The problem I have with this is that the score measures how much AI touched the writing and editing, not how much AI shaped the thinking, whether it was used for research, or whether a human sat with the final draft and meant every word. The Substack measure doesn’t capture when AI is used for the followingIdeationResearch and sourcesImages and visualsIt strictly captures the use of AI in text. Read more at DecodeEcon.com about what the research says will happen.

Decode Econ is a startup. Our goal is to help you see the economy clearly — and your place in it. It is a media firm with a mission to improve economic understanding. It is fun building it and seeing its impact, but the biggest joy is in working with the team that makes this work possible. I love working with young professionals and current students. They bring energy and creativity, and in return I mentor them on public engagement and translating research into impact. It is a win-win situation. This week, we sat down with Frannie and Claire to talk about experiential learning through on-the-job work at Decode Econ.They talked about how working at Decode Econ has taught them so much about economics and business, but also about teamwork, creativity, and understanding your audience. Most importantly, they discussed how they grew their adaptability muscle.The classroom only gets you halfway.Claire told me she joined Decode Econ because of my macro class. She learned to love the content, but she appreciated my class more for the energy I brought to a silent classroom on day one, which made her feel comfortable speaking up.Frannie said something similar about her marketing classes: the value wasn’t the frameworks, it was “being able to be applicable and actually figure it out for myself” before getting thrown into a real job.This tells me that the actual value of what we do is to help our students transfer knowledge and skills into action.Confidence isn’t taught. It’s built in reps.Claire shares with us that her turning point in college was showing up to observe the Haile research lab, staying silent for a while, then finally speaking up. Each exposure helped her open up new doors to new opportunities. Opportunity rewards students who are already in the room.My favorite moment: Frannie was on campus for an unrelated meeting when Dr. Raska (Chair of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management) passed by and, on a whim, invited her, on the spot, to tour a market research firm partnering with our college. There was no calendar invite and no time for her to prepare. She said yes anyway. Being present helped her open a new door and expand her network. Adaptability is the actual labor market skill, and startups teach it for free.Both students described Decode Econ’s early days as constant pivoting. The daily changes in direction that, at first, felt like personal failure. Frannie said she used to wonder, “Did I do something wrong?” every time we changed course. It wasn’t her. It was a small team figuring out its audience in real time, which is exactly what most of their future employers will also be doing.This is the argument I’d make directly to other business and econ educators: if you want to teach adaptability, you cannot lecture it into existence. You have to put students inside genuine ambiguity — a live project, a startup, a research team— and let them feel the discomfort of the pivot. That discomfort is the curriculum; do not shy away from it.Pick the manager and team over the salaryThat was a big takeaway from this conversation.If you are interested in supporting the students or have projects you want to work on together, please reach out. Students are funded through consulting projects, public speaking engagement, sponsorship, and gifts.Timestamps00:00 — Economic literacy has to meet Gen Z where they already are02:18 — Frannie’s background: marketing coursework meets real-world application07:05 — Claire’s origin story: how one macro class built her classroom confidence09:31 — Building confidence through low-stakes reps at the research lab14:17 — Purpose and impact: why Gen Z engagement is the point, not a side effect19:09 — FOMO as a signal of investment21:25 — Career advice: pick the manager and team over the salary23:54 — Naming and working through perfectionism and imposter syndrome31:05 — What community inside a startup actually provides