This paper addresses the teaching of economics and explores the gap between the real and the ideal in terms of both pedagogy and the incentive systems motivating staff. The authors report results of a survey of time allocation decisions by academic economists in Australian Universities and provide a critique of the incentives that effectively constrain efforts to improve the quality of economics teaching. CEQ survey results consistently indicate that economics is poorly received by students in both Australia and the USA and that extant incentives incline academics to allocate marginal effort to research at the expense of teaching. Revision of the prevailing incentive structure is recommended.