Students shun economics

A SENIOR Reserve Bank of Australia executive has warned a decline in high school economics has implications for the future of public debate and good policy development.

Enrolments in year 12 economics has dropped almost 70 per cent over the past 25 years.

Reserve Bank information department head Jacqui Dwyer, in a speech to an education conference, said the future of discourse about public policy was dim and needed analytical skills acquired by studying economics.