When the student becomes the teacher

Marianne Bertrand examines a question which is at the heart of the functioning of democracies: the role that large organisations - firms - play in influencing laws and how this influence and lobbying can result in policies which are not always in the interests of the majority. As an educator, she finds this a rewarding subject: students enter a class with a very black and white view of it, but leave with a clearer understanding of how important the decisions they may be involved in making will be.