The Fable of the Allegory: The Wizard of Oz in Economics

Abstract

L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has become popular as a teaching tool in economics. It has been argued that it was written as an allegory of Populist demands for a bimetallic monetary system in the late 19th century. The author argues that Baum was not sympathetic to Populist views and did not write the story as a monetary allegory.

Key Words:

• economic history
• monetary economics
• teaching economics
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bradley A. Hansen

Bradley A. Hansen is a professor of economics at Mary Washington College (e-mail: [email protected]). The author thanks Ben and Joanna Gregson for letting him read all the Oz books to them. He also thanks Mary Eschelbach Hansen for carefully reading several drafts of this article, and Hirschel Kasper and four anonymous referees for helpful comments. He also thanks Hugh Rockoff and Ranjit Dighe. Neither gentleman entirely agrees with him, but both provided numerous thoughtful comments and suggestions.