When Yuan Yang began her economics course in autumn 2008, she was shocked that within the cloisters of Balliol College, little attention was paid to the world outside. As Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy left markets reeling, her lectures at Oxford university offered little to help her understand how the failure of a single US investment bank could cause global pandemonium.

Only when she voiced her disquiet to her tutor did she encounter theories that offered explanations for what was happening. “The crisis exposed how disconnected the teaching of economics is from helping students understand real-world events,” says Ms Yang, now a 23-year-old student at the University of Beijing. “When I discovered that, within economics, there was an alternative to what I was being taught, it was such a relief. I had felt like I was part of an intellectual enclave that had no consideration for what could be learnt from psychology, philosophy or anything else in the social sciences.”

Ms Yang is at the forefront of a growing movement of young economists calling for universities worldwide to reform the way they teach the dismal science. They believe exposure to a broader range of approaches is essential if their generation is to avoid the policy errors made in the run-up to the crisis, and to grapple with issues such as inequality and the economic consequences of climate change.