Steve Cobb, Texas Council on Economic Education

Steven L. Cobb is the Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of North Texas.  He also serves as Director of the Center for Economic Education and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics.  He attended Southwestern University for his undergraduate work in Economics and Political Science.  Cobb received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1987 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He joined the faculty at the University of North Texas in 1986 and teaches principles of microeconomics and principles of macroeconomics at the undergraduate level and courses in international economics, comparative economic systems, and history of economic thought at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Cobb conducts research in the areas of economic education, international trade and economic development.  He was involved as an author of the textbook, International Economics, by Appleyard, Field, and Cobb through its seventh edition.  In October 2006, the National Association of Economic Educators presented Steve with the Bessie B. Moore Service Award for outstanding service and dedication to excellence and innovation in Economic Education.  In 2005, Cobb received the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southern Economic Association.  He also served as President of the National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) in 2000 and his Center for Economic Education received the 2005 Albert Beekhuis Award for Centers of Excellence in Economic Education and he has been selected to receive this award again for 2018.  Cobb has just completed an 8 year term as a member of the American Economic Association’s Committee on Economic Education and was the President of the Society for Economic Educators in 2016.  He is currently a member of the National Assessment of Educational Progress Committee on Economics and is Vice-President of the Global Economic Education Alliance.

            Steven Cobb conducts teacher workshops for school districts throughout Texas and across the United States.  In addition, Cobb served as a consultant and trainer for the Council for Economic Education’s EconomicsInternational Training of Trainers program for developing and transitional nations from 1994-2011.  The program was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and designed to provide materials and training to allow economists in these nations to teach economics from a market perspective using an active learning approach.  Cobb has conducted training programs in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and most recently Indonesia and Paraguay.  Since 2012, Cobb has been teaching graduate courses in International Economics for U.S. military personnel in the U.S., England, and Germany in the Advanced Programs curriculum. Since 2017, he has been involved in the Youth Win through Economic Participation program in Indonesia.  The program is funded by USAID and has developed a curriculum to help poor and vulnerable youth improve their financial life skills in order to become better employees and more productive citizens. He enjoys the international aspect of his work and tries to integrate this experience into his teaching.