The Top Free Online Econometrics Courses
The courses listed here don't require enrollment in an institution, and are all free of charge for at least a limited time. Many of the Coursera courses allow free enrollment, but may require a fee after a certain amount of time has passed. So, no matter where you are (in your home) - at your kitchen table, armchair, or even in bed - you can have econometrics taught to you by some of the top professors, hailing from some of the world's leading universities. The courses here are all econometrics related, though some cover introductory statistics, which is a necessary prerequisite to understand econometrics. All the courses are available in English and are targeted at various different levels of study. So, no matter where you are in your studies, whether you are doing a Bachelor's or a PhD, you should find something of interest. While some are open tutorials available at any time of the year, others have opening and closing dates for participation. 1. Econometrics: Methods and Applications Course Provider: Erasmus University Rotterdam/Coursera Duration: 8 weeks Background needed: The course is suitable for (advanced undergraduate) students in economics, finance, business, engineering, and data analysis, as well as for those who work in these fields. 2. The Classical Linear Regression Model Course Provider: Queen Mary University of London / Coursera Duration: Approx. 22 hours Background needed: Introductory course, no experience required. This is the first in a series of 4 courses: Econometrics of Economists and Finance Practitioners 3. Basic Statistics Course Provider: University of Amsterdam / Coursera Duration: 8 weeks Background needed: None; this is a beginner course that will help students get familiar with statistics. This and its following course are necessary background for econometrics coursework. 4. Inferential Statistics Course Provider: University of Amsterdam / Coursera Duration: 7 weeks Background needed: Basic Statistics, the course listed just above, is the prerequisite for this course. 5. Econometrics Course Provider: MIT Duration: Self Paced Background needed: Completed introductory course to statistics in economics. Students should be familiar with basic concepts in probability theory and statistical inference (courses #3 and #4 on this list can help you get started with that, if you need it!). 6. Econometrics MOOC Course Provider: Econometrics Academy Duration: Self-paced Background needed: Bachelor's-level knowledge of linear regression models and economic statistics will help you get started, as courses begin at a Master’s level. 7. Bayesian Statistics: From Concept to Data Analysis Course Provider: University of California at Santa Cruz / Coursera Duration: 4 weeks Background needed: Basic background in frequentist (i.e., “regular”) statistics, which courses #3 and #4 on this list can help with. 8. Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation Course Provider: Berkeley Duration: 12 weeks Background needed: Knowledge of statistical methods and software such as MATLAB.
Although the shift toward online learning pre-dated the coronavirus, the pandemic caused a great proliferation in the availability and acceptance of online learning. More and more courses can now be found online, allowing students to continue with their studies or even get credit for some courses from the comfort of their own home.
Econometrics, Statistics and Quantitative Methods (JEL C)
Developing a teaching profile: Why and how?
Teaching related metrics have also gained prominence. The annual National Student Survey of final year undergraduate students’ views of their programmes and universities; the greater attention paid to various national and international university rankings and the more recent Teaching Excellence Framework exercises have led to more attention being given to teaching and learning. Possibly reflecting this, there has also been a noticeable shift in the academic composition of many UK university economics departments. While historically departments recruited colleagues on research and teaching contracts, there are a growing number of departments that are recruiting academics with a greater emphasis on teaching (and administration) in their contracts. Regardless of the type of contract an academic is on, they increasingly need to demonstrate teaching effectiveness to ensure permanent contracts and promotions. In addition, a greater number of universities are also placing value on (and in some cases insisting upon) academics getting Advance HE teaching recognition in the form of Fellowship, Senior Fellowship or Principal Fellowship qualifications. As a result, academics are being asked to produce teaching profiles, teaching- focused CVs and evidence of their effectiveness as an educator. This article provides advice on how to approach writing these teaching profiles, including suggestions for the evidence to collate and include. How to evidence teaching effectiveness Academics should be consistently collecting evidence to demonstrate the quality and impact of their teaching. This information will be crucial if and when you are required to present a teaching profile, and can also be useful as a source of information (selected and probably in abbreviated form) for a teaching-focused CV. Most obviously, we should keep a record of the modules we teach each year, noting whether we take on the role of module leader, lecturer, or tutor, as well as the approximate number of students that we teach on each module. Keeping a record of the administrative/management roles undertaken that relate to teaching, learning, and assessment within a department and/or faculty is also important. We should similarly record the number of undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations supervised, and if we take on the role of PhD supervisor, we should also keep a record of the students’ names, thesis title, year of completion, and, if relevant, their job post-graduation. Record any professional qualifications related to teaching, such as from Advance HE including the date of any award, i.e., Associate Fellow; Fellow; Senior Fellow and Principal Fellow. Also keep a note of any teaching prizes at departmental, university or national levels. In the UK, National Teaching Fellowships are the most prestigious, as each university can only nominate three individuals per year across the entire institution for these. We should save module evaluation results, not only scores and response rates but also any particularly insightful comments. There is much debate around the validity of module evaluation results but universities still often consider these at least an imperfect indicator of teaching quality. Saving module evaluation comments that say ‘Professor X is amazing’ may be nice for our egos but more valuable are the comments from students that explain why a particular lecturer or tutor is effective as an educator. Teaching observation feedback from others is helpful. While it is fine to keep complimentary feedback, saving details of how we’ve responded to suggestions from observers is also valued. Also record information on any teaching observations you have conducted and ask colleagues to let you know if they make any changes to their teaching as a result of the feedback you have provided them. This allows us to demonstrate the impact we have had on others’ teaching. Similarly, keep a record of colleagues that you have mentored and any changes that they’ve made to their teaching and assessments stemming from mentoring advice offered. Noting the teaching and assessment technologies we adopt and why we use them is important. While using PowerPoint / LaTeX slides can be taken for granted, we should save information on additional technologies we use, for example online polling technologies or technologies used to make asynchronous lecture films and so on. Always save details of teaching / learning / assessment / pedagogy presentations made to colleagues and at conferences etc. In addition, publications make up an important part of any teaching profile. These may take the form of pedagogy research articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals, such as the International Review of Economics Education and the Journal of Economic Education, as well as more general pedagogy academic journals. However, there are many other possible, more informal outlets, including INOMICS Teach (of course); the Economics Network; the Economics Observatory; The Conversation; the Economic Review A-level magazine etc. There is also scope to write blogs, book chapters and texts, and to create podcasts. Check whether data on the number of views / citations are available and record this information too as this can give another indication of the impact of your scholarly activities beyond your immediate colleagues and department. Record all external examiner appointments including the dates of the role, and similarly note any external assessor appointments. All degree programmes / departments across the UK need to be reviewed periodically, with input from external academic reviewers. Finally, keep a record of any continuing professional development (CPD) courses attended. It can be helpful in promotion applications to be able to demonstrate that a conscientious approach to CPD has been taken. Demonstration of CPD is also essential for any Advance HE qualification applications. This could take the form of an internal training course or a workshop with an organisation like the Economics Network or Advance HE. Efficient use of teaching profile materials The above list of teaching related information may seem odious to maintain. However, once we get into a habit of collecting and collating these details it becomes easier, and it also saves time when we come to having to write an application. The above are only suggestions of information to keep. The key is to always collect details not only on roles and duties, but also on the impacts we have. Fortunately, if we collect such information then it can be used for a variety of purposes, including to create a teaching profile document or a teaching -focused CV, as may be needed to support a promotion or academic job application. In addition, the information can be used to enhance Advance HE qualification applications and maybe one day can be used to support a successful National Teaching Fellowship application. This article was produced in cooperation with the Economics Network, the largest and longest-established academic organisation devoted to improving the teaching and learning of economics in higher education. Learn more about the Economics Network here.
The increasing importance of evidencing teaching effectiveness In recent years, the UK higher education environment has noticeably changed. Research Assessment Exercises and then the Research Excellence Framework have highlighted the importance of academics not only being research- active but regularly publishing high quality outputs in internationally recognised academic journals.
Optimise your Recruitment Strategy for Economics PhD Positions
Candidates can find more information in our guide on how to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics. For institutions aiming to find the best international talent for their PhD positions, the most important question is how to reach the right audience, primarily current master’s students. You don’t want to waste all your budget chasing after the wrong candidates. Unlike bachelor or master’s level, the pool of potential PhD candidates is much smaller and they will already know which discipline or disciplines their interests align with. Therefore, it's best to target your recruitment efforts and be as specific as possible. With a strong user base of current students, INOMICS is an excellent platform to publish your PhD position in economics (or a PhD position in another discipline that is open to current economics students). Additionally our active blog and advice articles, not to mention our resources for economics students means that more students find INOMICS every day. To achieve the best results from your Announcement, be sure to consider the following recommendations. Program vs Job Opening One of the main questions faced by people publicizing their PhDs on INOMICS, is whether their advert should be advertised as a program, a scholarship or a job opening. The difference is important as many candidates restrict their search by the type of offer. Programs Students who want to transfer into PhD positions straight from their Master or Diploma degree tend to look first at the program section on INOMICS, being in a “campus mentality”, and aiming to find a structured program. PhD Candidates looking for programs make up the largest audience and generate the most searches. On INOMICS, student recruiters will get the best response by promoting their program through this section. Scholarship Students primarily looking for research funding, so that they can conduct research in pursuit of a PhD at their current university, or at a research institute where they are currently working, often look first at the scholarships section on INOMICS. This section is therefore best suited for PhD funding that is independent of location or institution. Job Opening Students who have either already obtained practical experiences or see their PhD positions as a launch for their academic careers, are more likely to start searching in the jobs section on INOMICS. These candidates are most likely to be interested in paid positions, and consider their PhD to be first and foremost a job with a qualification in parallel. Advertising PhD positions in this way may have the advantage that it attracts the attention of candidates who are not certain whether to continue their studies or apply for a job, and so might decide in favor of a PhD position rather than applying for a job in a different organization. Of course, this option is only possible (and desirable) for those positions with secured funding. If you want to advertise your PhD position for both categories, then please contact our team at info@inomics.com, and we will work out something that meets your needs. Add Keywords to Your Title A generic title like “PhD Program” or “PhD position in the Department of Economics” are too vague. Your title should include key information, like if the PhD position is in a certain subdiscipline (eg. Labor Economics), if there is funding (“Funded” or “Scholarships Available”) and what university is offering the position (eg. London School of Economics). This will make your posting stand out to visitors to INOMICS and more likely to appear in search engine result pages. Use heading to break up information People like to skim web pages. This is true even for information as important as a PhD position they want to apply to. Adding headings between your paragraphs such as “program description”, “funding” and “requirements” makes it easier for candidates to find the information they are looking for. Many candidates want to check they are eligible to apply for a PhD position first before reading the long description. Help people quickly filter out the right opportunities for them by adding headings and making it more likely the right candidates read on. Promote Your Listings Posting your position on your institution’s website and external hubs like INOMICS is only the first step. Remember to share your Announcement on social media via your faculty account and be sure to get your colleagues to post as well. This is a great way to increase the reach of your announcement. INOMICS helps put your Announcement in-front of potential candidates in economics across the web, email and social media, increasing your chances of success. To really increase the number of candidates seeing your announcement, use one of our more advanced promotion options or try our Multi-Channel Promotion. This offers recruiters a blend of content marketing, social media and email advertising to increase the reach of the listing. Be sure to speak to our Sales Team at info@inomics.com to customise the right package for your institution's position, or check out our publish page for our latest pricing. Find Economics PhD Candidates
Every year, October is the peak time for future PhD candidates in economics to start applying for their first-choice positions. For those students who want to stay in their current institutions, the process may be fairly straightforward. However, for candidates seeking opportunities internationally or simply at a different university, the prospect and the process may be somewhat more daunting.
Often, microeconomists are interested in the optimal choice that an economic agent can make using their limited budget. For instance, what is the maximum utility someone can achieve by purchasing some combination of goods? Lagrangian optimization allows us to solve this type of problem in a rather straightforward way. First, it assumes that a budget constraint is binding. This makes sense in a world where we assume the actors are rational consumers. If someone did not use all of their money, they understand that they would become better off by using the rest of their money. A budget constraint will often look similar to q*p ≤ a, where a is the total budget, q is quantity, and p is price. For our problem, we will use the constraint q1*p1 + q2*p2 ≤ a, where q1 and q2 are two different goods each with their own prices. This shows that the total value of goods the consumer purchases must be less than or equal to the money they have. When a budget constraint like this is “binding”, that just means that the inequality becomes an equals sign. Or, in words, the consumer uses all of their money. The next step is to subtract so that the budget constraint is all on the same side of the equation, like so: q1*p1 + q2*p2 - a = 0. Now, we multiply this budget constraint by the Lagrange multiplier λ, which represents the “shadow price”. That is, when this problem is solved, the Lagrange multiplier λ shows us how much the objective function (i.e., the utility function, revenue function, etc.) changes in response to an infinitesimal change in the budget constraint. To finish setting up the problem, simply subtract this modified budget constraint from the original equation. In our case, this means the full Lagrangian optimization problem looks like this: L(q1,q2,p1,p2) = U(q1,q2,p1,p2) - λ(q1*p1 + q2*p2 - a) where L denotes a Lagrangian optimization problem, and U(q1,q2,p1,p2) is the utility function as a function of q and p for both goods. To solve this problem, we take a series of partial derivatives for each variable and set each equal to zero to find the critical points of this function. In this case, we assume that prices and the budget are fixed, which leaves q1, q2 and λ as variables that we should derive the Lagrangian with respect to. This will look like so: \begin{equation*} \frac{\partial{L}}{\partial{q}_1} = \frac{\partial{U}}{\partial{q}_1} - \lambda*\mathit{p}_1 = 0 \end{equation*} \begin{equation*} \frac{\partial{L}}{\partial{q}_2} = \frac{\partial{U}}{\partial{q}_2} - \lambda*\mathit{p}_2 = 0 \end{equation*} \begin{equation*} \frac{\partial{L}}{\partial{\lambda}} = 0 - \mathit{q}_1*\mathit{p}_1 - \mathit{q}_2*\mathit{p}_2 + \textit{a} = 0 \end{equation*} Note that the last partial derivative simplifies to exactly the budget constraint we originally had. These partial derivatives give us a series of equations to solve. In the real world, computer software can help us do this, but in economics courses the relations will be solvable via algebra. The solution yields the optimal amount of both goods for the consumer to purchase to maximize their utility, given their budget and the prices of both goods. These answers can be plugged back into the original utility function to yield the maximum amount of utility this provides. As an example, consider that good 1 is tea (measured in liters), and good 2 are biscuits. Also suppose that the final results of the optimization problem give us q1 = 5 and q2 = 10. These amounts show that for this individual and their budget constraint, they achieve the highest level of utility possible by consuming 5 liters of tea and 10 biscuits. Then, q1 = 5 and q2 = 10 can be inserted back into U(q1,q2,p1,p2) along with the given prices to yield the total utility from this consumption mix for this individual. At this point, λ shows the additional utility this individual could gain if their budget increased by one dollar. As a side note, you may be wondering how savings fits into this picture. People are often encouraged to keep some money set aside to save and not spend. How then can it be best for people to spend all of their money, so that the budget constraint is entirely used up? In our framework with the budget constraint in this problem, “savings” can be thought of as a good just like a banana or a scarf. People choose how much money to “spend” on savings. Thus, the framework of our problem does not change. People are better off making use of their entire budget, where some part of the budget can be used to “purchase” savings. In macroeconomics, savings is usually considered separately from consumption as it is studied more closely than in our simple example here. Good to Know This type of problem can be easily adjusted to account for many different economic scenarios without changing the basic structure of the solution. For example, instead of considering a consumer’s utility function and their budget, we can analyze production decisions for a firm. To do so, we replace the utility function with a revenue function, and the budget becomes the quantity times the cost for each good, rather than the price. The underlying math is not changed. When we plug the optimal amounts into the original revenue function, this yields the total possible revenue the firm can generate given their costs. More advanced microeconomics courses will often return to this type of optimization with minor additions. For example, Bertrand, Cournot, and Stackelberg competition models can be solved using the Lagrange method with slight adjustments to the above formula. Practice using the Lagrange method... Exercises for you <use xlink:href="/themes/custom/venice/images/icons.svg#launch-18px"></use>
Lagrangian optimization is a method for solving optimization problems with constraints. The method makes use of the Lagrange multiplier, which is what gives it its name (this, in turn, being named after mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange, born 1736). Many subfields of economics use this technique, and it is covered in most introductory microeconomics courses, so it pays to become familiar with it.
8 Qualities Which Will Get You Through Tough Times In Your PhD
1. Creative Thinking When things go wrong during your PhD program – which they surely will! – then you need to find creative solutions. If your initial analysis found no meaningful results for your primary question, did it reveal other interesting insights? If your pilot experiment didn’t work out, can you salvage the data or design a better experiment? Perhaps you couldn’t find the data you were hoping for – would finding a suitable instrumental variable help fill the gap? The process of research is really a process of learning, and if your research is new, it probably generated new knowledge. Even a finding of “no relationship” can be interesting. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> 2. Adaptability As a PhD candidate, you are an expert in some areas but inexperienced in others. In order to deal with challenges, you'll need to adapt and learn new skills. An attitude of lifelong learning is a good quality for PhD students. So, don't tell yourself that you're “not good with numbers” or “not a good writer” - instead, you'll benefit from accepting that you'll sometimes need to learn new skills or spend more time on certain aspects of your research. Asking your peers for help might be a good way to start, thus at the same time forging connections that will help you support one another through the difficult PhD process. 3. Openness As with adaptability, it's important that you are open-minded to new ideas. Don't get too attached to one idea, method, or approach to your work. It's better to consider different approaches when you're in a bind. For example, perhaps your experimental methodology didn't work out, but there might be a different methodology you could use instead. Learnings from other social sciences, both in theory and in methodology, can be helpful here. Especially if you know peers working in other disciplines, it could be very illuminating to chat with them about your research interests. 4. Ability to accept criticism It's hard to hear criticism – especially when you're tired, worried, or stressed. But when you run into a problem, you need to really listen to criticism from your supervisor or colleagues. They have a wealth of information and ideas to offer you, and your project can greatly benefit from them. If you find this difficult, try writing down the feedback and not responding to it straight away. Take a day to think it over before responding, and you'll find it easier to accept valid criticism. 5. Having (and using) a support network You can't pursue a PhD alone, and you'll need a team who can help you out when things get tough. Fellow PhD candidates, other people in your department, people you meet at conferences and events, family, and friends can all be called on to help. Don't be afraid to ask for support when you need it – whether that support is advice, technical help, proofreading, or just going out with you socially to take your mind off things. 6. Perseverance & determination You're sure to come across some roadblocks in your PhD, like your paper getting rejected from a journal, an experiment which did not work out as planned, or the unavailability of resources that you were relying on for your project. In these times, you need to be able to keep working and not give up. If you're really struggling with a problem, it's okay to take a few days off to think about it. Keep pushing back at your problems and seek help when you need it, and you will likely find a way to overcome them eventually. 7. Stress management Everyone doing a PhD feels overwhelmed with stress sometimes. It's normal to feel that way on occasion, but it'll be very hard if you feel stressed all of the time. In order to keep your stress levels under control, you should find a way to blow off steam that works for you. Some people like to exercise or play a team sport, while others like meditation or relaxation techniques. Some people just like to read or to spend time with friends. Find something that works for you and carve out some time for stress management each week. This will make you much more capable of dealing with problems when they do arise. 8. Resilience All of these qualities go together to help you become more resilient – that is, capable of coping with difficult situations and not giving up when faced with problems. Psychological resilience is a very important quality for a PhD student, and one which many graduates will recognize in hindsight as a trait that they developed during their PhD. In a PhD as in the rest of your life, dealing with stress and adversity will be essential for success. Studies have found that positive emotions are key to coping with negative experiences, so one of the best ways that you can build your resilience is to occasionally take time off in which you indulge in fun activities. It might feel frivolous but it will help you in the long run. Image credit: Naassom Azevedo on Pixabay. (free to use under the Pixabay Content License)
Doing an economics PhD can be full of challenges and difficulties. Here we look at some of the personal qualities that will help you continue making progress when you encounter a problem.
A Post-PhD Career in Research: Jack of all Trades, Master of Some
The importance of writing as communication It is indeed true that researchers like us (post-docs, research fellows, senior researchers, and so on) working in academia or in public/private/non-profit institutes spend a lot of time at their desks: writing articles, among other things. We maybe Doctors of Philosophy, but in reality, we are Masters in Writing and a few other things. This is because the demands of a researcher’s role requires us to be jacks of a lot of trades and masters in some. Writing is intrinsically connected to communication. As researchers we need to be good at communicating our thinking – what we study, why and how, and what we can (and cannot) conclude from the results – to diverse audiences. These include fellow scientists, policymakers, university administrators, and the wider public. It requires us to be as creative as the advertising professional next door. We need to learn how to crisply frame catchy titles so that articles promptly capture the attention of editors. We seek creative answers to questions such as: how do we in 200 words summarize a complex research idea that took us six months to conceptualize, test and execute? What is the next big research idea, and how will it get us a zillion citations in a few months? Developing managerial skills In addition, we also start playing managerial roles. First, we need to hone our skills in people management. Supervising students, research assistants, doctoral scholars, and entry-level post-docs is a daily activity. This throws up new challenges: how do we find a good balance between our research interests and nurturing those of our junior researchers? How do we encourage them to work hard while also ensuring that they do not get burnt out? How do we find research assistants who care as much about our research as we do? How do we incentivize the masters’ students to put in their very best in executing the research plans they have drawn up? Second, we need to develop good project management skills: for instance, we need to ensure that our research assistants set realistic deadlines. However, even well-planned deadlines may sometimes turn out to be unrealistic. In such cases, contingency actions need to be taken to ensure that promises to external stakeholders are kept. Third, budgeting: we need to pay our research assistants at market rates and budget accordingly, while also reserving funds for travel, lab equipment, subcontractor expenses and organization of workshops & other project events. However, research funds are never enough for all the fancy research we aspire to conduct, especially if we recruit a research assistant who is so good that we want to retain them. In such cases, we need answers to an added list of troubling questions: for instance, should we pay them more than the market rates by reallocating funds from some of the other research plans? Research as entrepreneurship Ambitious researchers like us soon encounter our Matrix moment. We soon realize that all that we have been taught during our graduate studies was only partly true. We soon realize that, we are part-researchers and part-entrepreneurs. Organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) are our private equity firms. In order to entice them to grant us huge bags of research money, we have to tap into our inner entrepreneurial self, polish our managerial skills, hone our creative juices and write up grant proposals. If we are good entrepreneurs, we will be blessed with money, resources, talented PhD students, and hopefully a few well-cited academic articles in high-impact journals. However, being entrepreneurial isn’t enough. We also have to develop organizational skills for planning stakeholder meetings. These stakeholder meetings ensure that our research is grounded: that we are not wasting our hard-earned grant money in proposing arcane theory on obscure topics. Good research takes into account the costs and benefits to all stakeholders who are involved with or affected by the research. Planning such events is a tough job – it requires answering questions such as: how do we make stakeholder meetings truly participatory in nature? How do we develop seating arrangements so that power imbalances between stakeholders don’t impede communication? How do we goad them to open their minds and tell us what they truly think of our research? What kind of catering preparation need to be made? Are the expectations of participants, regarding both catering and other organizational aspects, influenced by country-specific cultural practices? <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> Necessary skills for good researchers And that brings us to the most important and least talked-about role that a researcher has to play: knowledge brokering, with its fine balance of advice and advocacy. Good research is necessary for solving societal challenges, whether in the short term (in the case of the applied sciences) or in the long term (in the case of the fundamental sciences). Societal challenges can be solved only if researchers seek to bridge the gaps that exist across varied scientific disciplines, policy and society. This requires us to be reflexive about our work. It also means that we have to advocate the implications of our research (and its associated uncertainties) with policy makers, grass-roots activists, private firms, funding agencies, students and society in general. In other words, a good researcher is not only a master in research and writing, but also a jack of many other trades. A good researcher is a good manager, a self-motivated entrepreneur, an event planner, a creative communicator and a passionate-but-reflexive advocate of the role of science in solving societal challenges. A doctoral program teaches a prospective researcher to be good at framing research questions, at identifying appropriate research methodology for answering these questions and at implementing research plans using such methodology. Over time researchers also become good at writing. However, many of the other skillsets discussed above are less well-developed during graduate education. This is a missed opportunity. Drawing on our own experiences, we wrote this article to highlight this oversight. This is because we believe that doctoral students need to be equipped with skillsets in management, planning, creative communication and knowledge brokering. Only then can they function as effective solvers of societal challenges. Sanchayan Nath is a post-doctoral researcher at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development (Utrecht University, The Netherlands). Arjan Wardekker is a senior researcher at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development and visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (University of Bergen, Norway)
Our favorite caricature of a post-doctoral researcher: a frail man (or woman) with unkempt hair, hunched in front of a computer screen, with a half-filled cup of coffee by his side. As the coffee gets colder and time flies by, he appears oblivious to his surroundings. He is happy spending long hours at his desk conceptualizing arcane theory on obscure topics the real world does not care about. He is in a state of eternal "tapasya" – meditating on his eternal love-affair with knowledge…because life is an eternal quest for knowledge! Or, so the world believes. Once the PhD has been completed, and freshly-minted researchers decide that research is what they would like to do for the rest of their lives, their friends and family might start assuming that a Doctor of Philosophy is just another armchair intellectual.
5 key differences between American- and European-style PhD programs
This piece primarily focuses on the differences and similarities between economics PhD programs on the two sides of the Atlantic. I later discuss how an economics PhD is organized in other parts of the world, as many other countries have modeled their PhD programs on one of these two styles. Program duration The most striking difference between an American and European economics PhD is the expected duration of the program. In the US, universities traditionally offer a five-year degree where the first two years are devoted to training, and the final three years are expected to be spent on independent research. At the end of Year 1, graduate students take core examinations to progress to the second year. These are traditionally in Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Econometrics. In the second year of an American PhD, students can choose courses that are closer to their research interests, which allows them to specialize in a particular field. In Europe, graduate programs vary significantly in terms of both structure and expected study duration. A standard Economics PhD lasts three to four years. In the first year, graduate students typically follow PhD-level courses offered by their department and develop a research proposal. The next two to three years are spent on independent research. Recently, many top European economics schools have started offering a 5-year PhD program following the American tradition. It is composed of two years of intensive classes delivered ‘in-house’ by the respective department, after which students are typically awarded a degree of a Research Master’s (or MPhil) and progress onto the research stage. Some universities offer a three-year ‘research only’ program for more advanced students, although this is still uncommon. These programs are usually for students that completed a Research Master (or an MPhil) somewhere else or gained extensive research experience prior to their PhD. Master’s degree requirements The second difference between an American and a European PhD is whether one can apply with an undergraduate or a Master’s degree. Most economics departments in the US have a preference for candidates with a completed Master’s degree. However, this is not usually a formal requirement: many successful applicants get in with an undergraduate degree and no or limited prior research experience. To strengthen their portfolio, especially when applying to top schools, some applicants spend a year or two as a predoctoral fellow (“predoc”) at a reputable department. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> Research flexibility American and European doctoral programs also differ in the degree of flexibility that the students get when choosing their research topic. In the US, a doctoral dissertation is a composition of several (typically, 3-4) research papers that might or might not be interconnected. They can even come from different fields in economics and demonstrate a diversified portfolio for a future PhD holder. A job market paper, which is chosen from the research portfolio and is usually the most promising and advanced piece of research, plays a far greater role for someone who wishes to pursue an academic career. This is because those pursuing an academic career will be required to submit a single paper for presentation at an annual American economics job market event, where recent PhD graduates are matched with academic institutions. The process is highly centralized in the US by the American Economic Association (AEA). European PhD students typically develop an elaborated research proposal prior to commencing an active research stage. The projects (typically 3-4) are expected to be interlinked and within one research field. In striking contrast to the US, many departments in Europe and the UK offer project-based PhD positions. That is, a professor (or a research group) submits a grant proposal on a specific topic to the national or European research council. If the application is successful, the allocated funds are used to cover the compensation of everyone involved: from research assistants and PhDs to postdoctoral researchers and principal investigators. Typically, several PhD students are recruited for one project. As the research topic is predetermined by the project, students have little flexibility to work on something else. This form of doctorate studies is rare in America. Funding opportunities Funding sources and opportunities for PhDs are another striking difference. In America, PhD funding is typically a complex composite. The funds come from various sources: the graduate school, the department, or a dedicated charity or national fund. The form of funding varies, too: from teaching and research assistantships to merit-based scholarships. The final amount might vary from year to year and depends on the student’s individual circumstances. In Europe, a PhD scholarship is usually a fixed amount offered for the duration of the program. Additional funds may come from teaching and exam invigilation activities (the latter being particularly common in the UK). The funds are allocated by the university or the department. For those pursuing a project-based PhD (see the previous section), the funds come from the sponsoring body and are administered by the department. Moreover, in Europe, it is common to do an externally funded PhD: a company or an organization (such as a ministry, a national central bank, or a think tank) sponsors the doctoral degree for their (future) employee to research a very particular topic that is relevant for them. This is usually done in collaboration with a university, but the expenses are covered by the respective stakeholder. Teaching expectations Both American and European PhD programs offer significant exposure to teaching. In America, teaching duties are not only an essential part of economics PhD training but also a source of funding in most cases. Teaching at both undergraduate and Master’s levels is considered a crucial element of a successful academic job market preparation for graduate students. In Europe, the amount of teaching workload depends on the program and institution. In a standard 4-year PhD track, students spend on average 15% of their time on teaching. Project-based and externally funded PhD students are typically not expected to teach any classes, but the department usually provides the opportunity to do so at the student’s will. In the UK, for instance, PhD students can choose how many hours to teach: this work is paid on top of the base PhD scholarship. How it works in other parts of the world Universities in Australia, New Zealand and Canada typically follow the American PhD structure: two years of classes plus three years of independent research. A PhD experience there is comparable to the one in the US. Similar programs (in terms of organization) are offered by top Asian schools in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. In other parts of the world, where economics research capacities are less developed, doctoral studies take various forms, such as employment at the national academy of sciences. My experience of choosing a PhD I applied for 7 PhD programs in both the US and Europe and got offers from 4. I personally opted for a Dutch 3-year program. From day one, I have focused on the research project that I started during my Research Master’s degree. The university also offered me the chance to take on teaching and supervision responsibilities from the first year. My choice involved a trade-off, too: as I am not part of an established project and came with my own idea that had been partially carried out elsewhere, I had to accommodate more risks related to my research output. For example, I had to prove that my research idea fit the department’s agenda or that, as a newcomer to the faculty, I would be able to finish the chapters on time. But those concerns were swiftly managed thanks to the collaborative relationship that I built with my supervisors. If you’re in the position that I was, and you already have a Master’s degree, a developed research idea, or some prior research experience, a 3-year or 4-year program in the European style can be an appealing option. But, for those students who don’t yet feel confident in their academic background but are committed to the PhD path, an American-style 5-year program can offer a great starting point. Header image credit: Pam Patterson on Pixabay. (free for use under the Pixabay Content License)
A PhD is a life choice. One of the crucial factors that a potential graduate student should account for is that doing a PhD in the US can be a completely different experience from doing a PhD in Italy, Germany, or elsewhere in Europe.
Time management One of the first skills that you'll pick up in your PhD program is the ability to manage your own time. Unless you have an unusually overbearing supervisor, you will have to be responsible for organizing your own working days and making sure that your work gets done on time. This is excellent training for other roles later in your career in which you will have to allocate time for various tasks to meet deadlines. Browse our PhD program listings for economics Importance of prioritization Related to time management, you will also learn to assess the priorities of various tasks. What needs to be done right now, and what can wait? Is it better to get small tasks out of the way quickly, or should you tackle big, demanding projects first? There are different styles which work for different people, and being responsible for your own research project will teach you which prioritization techniques work for you. How to work with others Although doing a PhD is largely an independent undertaking, you will also need to work with others. Whether working as part of a research group or organizing an event with your fellow PhD students, you will learn to listen to others, to make your own suggestions to a group, and to find compromises. These are all invaluable skills for later in life. How to give an oral presentation At some point in your PhD you will be required to give an oral presentation, such as at a conference, workshop, or as part of your thesis defense. You will get in practice at putting together interesting slides, at speaking clearly to a group, and at conveying information in a comprehensible way. Self-motivation One of the biggest challenges to overcome in your PhD is having to motivate yourself. It's unlikely that anyone else will push you to get your work done, so you have to find ways in which you can encourage yourself, even when you're tired or bored. Being able to push through negative emotions to meet your goals is one of the most broadly useful life skills you can acquire.​ Effective writing and editing Whether you write up your thesis as one large document or as several shorter journal articles, you will learn a lot about making sure that your writing is not only accurate, but also concise and engaging. People who have done postgraduate study will have much more writing experience than most of the public, and this is advantageous for many career paths. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> Independent creative thought An underrated skill that you will pick up from running your own research project is the ability to think about problems in creative ways and to come up with novel solutions and ideas. Because you will be working on a new and previously uninvestigated topic, you will not always be able to rely on the concepts of others, and will have to find your own approach to issues. The confidence that this gives you will help you when problem solving in future situations, both personal and professional. Learning how to learn Possibly the most useful thing that you'll discover when doing a PhD is what learning methods are effective for you and how to make use of them. You may need to teach yourself skills such as data analysis, programming, or other technical skills. Beyond acquiring the skills themselves, you will also find out about how you learn, and what teaching methods work best for you. Do you like to read a lot of written information? To see someone knowledgeable working in practice? To test and experiment with new tools by yourself? Being able to identify the methods that work for you will mean that you are capable of teaching yourself any skills that you may require in the future, which is helpful whenever you come across a new or unfamiliar situation. Header image credit: Pixabay.
Doing an economics PhD will make you an expert in your research topic, but, beyond that, it will also teach you a number of valuable lessons which are applicable to other jobs and your personal life. Here are some of the most useful lessons that you'll learn from undertaking your own independent research project. If you plan to start your PhD application this autumn, download our free guide "How to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics".
How to balance your PhD and your social life
Treat your PhD like a regular job One of the challenges of adjusting to life as a PhD student is the lack of a firm schedule or a definite structure. Although there are options for structured PhD programs, especially in the US, many PhD programs do not have required coursework or set work times. This can make it hard to know when you should be working, and conversely, when you are allowed to take time off. To help with this, where possible set some regular working hours for yourself and try not to answer emails outside of normal working hours. There can be considerable pressure from your supervisor and others to be available at all times, but waking up in the middle of the night to answer emails is not healthy. And, if you stick to regular working hours – for example, 9 to 6 from Monday to Friday – you'll have less of a need to answer late night emails. This will help to keep your evenings free for social events, both practically and mentally. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> You need holidays and days off Similar to the advice above, when doing a PhD program there is a feeling like you should be working every spare second that you have. But no one can work 100% of the time. For the sake of your social life and your well being, it's vital that you take weekends and holidays off. Use this time to see friends and family and try not to think too much about work while you do. One good way to take vacation is to add a few days to the end of your trip when you travel to a conference. Conferences are usually held in exciting locations and you'll only need to pay for the extra days at a hotel and your daily expenses. A few days off after a busy conference can be a great way to relax with friends, co-workers, or a partner. Attend social events at your institution If you don't know many other people who are doing a PhD, you might feel very isolated and like no one understands what you're going through. A good way to get to know other people in the same situation as you is to attend grad school events at your institution. It is always helpful to get to know other PhD students, especially those working in your field, so that you can support each other and trade tips on succeeding at a PhD. Taking this time to meet and chat with other PhDs isn't only important socially – it's also a part of professional networking. So don't feel bad about taking a few hours after work to go out with your fellow PhDs. Prioritize events and don't try to do everything On top of your research work, when you do your PhD you'll have lots of other events to attend too: department meetings, grad school events, lectures, workshops, conferences, summer schools, and more. These extra events can absolutely help you in your PhD and you should definitely attend some of them. However, you won't be able to attend everything – and if you tried to then you wouldn't have time for your research, let alone for time off. So prioritize these events – what is necessary, and what is optional? You are allowed to decide not to attend a lecture or other event if you are just too busy. Create a timeframe for finishing your PhD A difficult part of finding a balance with your PhD is that it is such a long-term project; usually it lasts at least three years, but often more. This makes it hard to know what goals you should be hitting when, which in turn means that you don't know when it is reasonable to take time off. A way to deal with this is by drawing up a timeframe of your PhD which plans the dates by which you would like to have achieved certain goals. For example, maybe you would spend three months researching experimental methodologies, another three months designing and implementing your own methodology, six months of data collection, then a year on your data analysis and writing up a paper. Once you have this timeframe, even if it is only approximate, you can feel more confident about your progress through your PhD and feel less guilty about taking time off. Knowing that you are hitting your targets will allow you to take social time more comfortably.
Doing an economics PhD can feel like an all-encompassing task, but it's important for your well-being that you have a social life during this time as well. It can be hard to balance the two, but if you don't, you may find yourself overwhelmed and not able to enjoy your time researching and writing as much. Here are tips on balancing your PhD with your social life.
If you go through curricula vitae of recent PhD graduates, you may find it’s not uncommon to see that a PhD owns two master’s degrees. As lots of MA/MSc in Economics programs are one-year programs, some students will pursue an MRes or MPhil in Economics afterwards. Others may opt for a degree in applied mathematics, statistics or another field with an intention to strengthen their quantitative and/or coding skills (summer school programs are another option to do this). Even more common in those CVs is seeing a predoctoral research assistantship (henceforth, “predoc RA”). For many students, this job was done during their bachelor’s or master’s studies, while for others, it was a full-time predoc RA position in the interim before their PhD programs. Both of these cases are what the phrase “predoc life” refers to in this article. As a current PhD student who has fairly recently experienced the application process, and who has quite a few friends and peers who have also had this experience, I’m sharing this overview to help others who are considering a PhD. This article is specifically for those students who are not sure whether to apply to a PhD straight away, or to extend their predoc career first. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an><o:p></o:p> The pros and cons of predoc life There are differing viewpoints about whether prolonging your predoc life is helpful or not. Although receiving broader academic training, replacing the current GPA with a better one, and developing a more fully-fledged research idea are some of the many pros, the cons deserve to be shared. Given increasingly difficult admissions (which has been observed, but as of this writing not proven), a second Master’s without plenty of advanced courses and excellent grades may even hurt your chances of being admitted to a PhD program. Likewise, a full-time predoc RA position does not necessarily help a lot if the professor is not truly satisfied with your work and would not give strong support to your application. Anyhow, a research Master’s, predoc RA, or even a combination (a few master’s programs actually offer RA positions to all admitted students, such as the Master in Quantitative Economics at LMU Munich) tend to be indispensable for candidates who want to earn a place in prestigious programs, although the minimum requirement of some of those programs on the surface may just be a Bachelor’s degree. A PhD fellowship is highly demanding, even beyond top-ranked programs. For that reason, many students have to choose between a fully-funded fellowship or a more prestigious program. On the one hand, more prestigious programs are more selective, offering self-funded admission or partial scholarships (tuition waiver or similar) to candidates who are qualified but less competitive in their intake year. On the other hand, “aiming lower” can make applicants eligible for full scholarships in some other programs. What are common PhD pathways? Regardless of program choice, sometimes we have no choice but to catch up with our peers, or we may simply self-select and join this marathon. Reasons we do so are complicated. Earlier this year, one of my friends discussed her PhD application with me. Both of us had the same concern that we were not yet well-prepared to be competent in carrying out research after our two-year Master's studies. Thus, we preferred a structured PhD program involving one to two years of intensive coursework, which corresponds to an MRes or MPhil in Europe but is a default component of PhD programs in the US. I bet we are not the only two people on this planet who were not confident, and puzzled by whether we should extend this “prelude”. Our concern is somehow endemic to the EU, as, unlike the US, students here generally have two application paths with funding opportunities. One path is position-oriented, often tied to a funded project where the principal investigator (PI) who will be the supervisor can decide the candidacy. Whether applicants’ previous research experience and their proposals fit the project are often the most important factors in the decision. And the application highly hinges on timing – you cannot predict when a PI will obtain a grant and start recruiting a PhD. This is a traditional pathway in many European countries, including the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, etc., for both professors and students to find each other. The positions are typically funded for 3–4 years, with strong heterogeneity across countries, universities and disciplines. Candidates will then be employed as faculty and mainly work for the project they applied to. In most cases, there is no more coursework prior to the dissertation stage. In contrast, the other pathway is more like the US where the intake is routinely organized with a definite starting date and application deadline. Admission is relatively more merit-based, i.e., utilizing GPA, IELTS and/or GRE scores, and scrutinized by a committee. Top-ranked students will usually receive scholarships with no obligation to teach or assist in research, while others may apply for teaching or research assistantships to get financial aid. These PhD programs may or may not include a one- to two-year Master’s component. More and more Economics programs do include one, particularly among those that offer funding. Some students accepted in the first pathway will also be enrolled in these programs. There are also similar types of programs that are open for applications throughout the year, but candidates are often required to seek funding opportunities on their own in this case. Will your studies adequately prepare you for research? Let’s get back to our puzzle. Should you prolong your predoc life? I do not deny that additional coursework could be helpful and provide more buffer time to allow students to adapt to research. Yet when my friend said she thought she needed it to underpin her research abilities, I started wondering if this is truly the case. Why were we not trained well enough by our Master’s to be capable of doing research right away? Research is a new domain and requires its own set of skills. Consider that time spent on coursework can indirectly help students develop research abilities. My friend thinks (and I used to agree) that we do not really master what we were taught, but as we have learned topics once, we will understand them better if we learn them again. Suppose we attend a course in fall 2021 and start a relevant research project in spring 2023. To what extent will we still remember those details? Will we need to learn them a third time? Will a mathematical proof perfectly done in the exam enable us to apply it practically in our projects right away? Will specialized courses taken during a program cover all the knowledge we need for our research? To be very honest, I’ve found that things I learned from the majority of my courses are irrelevant to my research. This is because as our studies become more advanced, the content of courses becomes narrower and narrower and relies more or less on lecturers’ research interests. Thus, if you have been taught income inequality in a Development Economics course, when you later undertake research on human development you may still need to cover some gaps on your own. However, this doesn’t mean that those courses are useless. They are meaningful in a way besides directly contributing to my work – they made me aware of what are canonical and/or cutting-edge studies in many subfields and whether I am interested in them or not. Therefore, exposing you to some topics and helping you explore your interests are part of their true value. The importance of “learning by doing” I believe we can never be truly “well-prepared” for research. We may often find ourselves falling short in certain knowledge or skills, but we cannot rely on classes and exams forever. My personal experience is that “learning by doing” makes more sense. It’s always somewhat of a mystery until you actually try to do it. This, not uncommonly, goes beyond what you learned in courses such as advanced microeconomics or econometrics and into something much more “niche”. However, we can hardly figure these things out ex ante. When we kick off our research, we should not only identify gaps in scholarship but also in our own knowledge. In fact, I think learning and researching often co-evolve during my work. When I do a literature review, I always learn about new models, theories or econometric techniques that are not so classical and thus not covered in courses. Following the literature review, I may choose a few favorite articles as a starting point, think about what they didn’t address and what virtues I can absorb, and accordingly what else I can do based on them. In my case, this could lead me to a better dataset, a new methodology and/or a more refined model. For the latter two, reading and learning from recent articles and books is often important, as all traditional approaches have already been done – after all, how else did they become traditional but by being done often? In conclusion: recommendations for students Personally, I would suggest students try a part-time RA in parallel with their studies rather than directly jumping into a second Master’s or other program, ceteris paribus. If this is not an option for you, in my humble opinion, a research Master’s with RA opportunities or a Master’s in statistics or data science is a good option. This is because they can at least improve your employability in industry (if you change your mind, you can apply for an internship before your graduation – enrollment is important in some EU countries for finding interns). Instead, doing a full-time predoc RA would be more ideal if you are very certain that you want to do a PhD. It will take some commitment, but if you are dedicated to getting your PhD, the payoff could be worth it.
Due to COVID-19, PhD applicants over the past two years have had quite difficult application periods. It seems common now for students to apply to a range of universities and not be accepted to any of them. In fact, even without this exogenous pandemic factor, admission to economics PhD programs has been becoming increasingly difficult as a result of the excess supply of PhD applicants.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of software: proprietary and open source. Some people and organizations choose to use proprietary packages, which are developed and copyrighted by a single company. Others rely on free, open source solutions, like the popular “R” Project. Within these two categories, there are dozens if not hundreds of alternatives, varying in price, complexity, capability, user-friendliness and popularity. This post by Bob Muenchen is a great resource if you are looking for a survey of the most popular packages. He uses a number of different measures to evaluate different software options and keeps it up to date. Note that this survey is for data science in general - not just economics. That said, all of the common software used in economics are represented - like Python, R, Stata, SAS, SPSS, MATLAB, and more. That’s quite the list of names, and it can sound intimidating. To help you understand the software tools landscape, in this article we will shed some light on the most popular software packages for economists, and offer some details about how you can learn more about them. 1) Which software should I use? Before buying a package or downloading an open-source option, it is a good idea to talk to colleagues, visit online forums or communities related to each product of interest, examine your course curricula if you’re a student, and take advantage of free trials. It is also important to consider your own abilities and/or the level of expertise available within your team (if applicable). If there are several software packages that meet your needs, options with better support may save you time and stress in the long term. That said, students of economics may tend to focus on the major open-source, non-proprietary tools in their studies; many courses use open-source tools to teach. Python and R are two examples. R is used very often by economists. Python, meanwhile, is used somewhat less often in economics, but is used frequently in data science, which increasingly overlaps with econometric analyses that economists might want to run. There are many statistics packages for Python that allow it to conduct the same analyses that other popular packages like R can do. So, familiarity with both packages pays dividends. There is a great deal of free educational material on both R and Python available online; knowing how to run regressions and manipulate data in these programs is a great advantage for a serious economics student. However, there are other advantages to proprietary software platforms with paid licenses such as Stata, SPSS, and MATLAB. Often, the support and training opportunities behind these platforms are likely to be more extensive than for open-source software. Moreover, these tools might be easier to use for economists with little coding experience, with well designed user interfaces enabling economists to manipulate graphs and variables where open-source tools might require lines of code to do so instead. 2) What kind of license should I buy? If you are a university student or an employee of a company that uses a proprietary software tool, you likely already have access to the software without needing to purchase it for your own personal use. Otherwise, if you desire to use these options, you’ll have to pay for a license to do so. The criteria for different types of licenses vary from one software manufacturer to the next. Typically, student licenses will be the cheapest, and are offered for shorter periods (weeks or months, rather than one or more years). Many software packages also have an academic and/or non-profit license available. Corporate licenses are normally the most expensive - but you won’t likely need to purchase a corporate license yourself. Check the criteria for each package, and consult with your local distributor to see which kind of license and corresponding level of training and support is right for you. 3) Should I purchase direct or from a distributor? If you’re going the purchasing route, it is nearly always possible to buy directly from the software manufacturer via their website. But, consider looking for a local distributor instead. The prices are normally more or less the same (with exceptions), but distributors are advantageous for the “extras” you receive as a customer, such as in-house support, newsletters and local user-group meetings. In addition, support and training local to you and in your language can be a major plus-point. Another advantage is that if you are purchasing different software packages, you can have one contact point for all of them. 4) How much mastery of coding or programming do I need? Regardless of your chosen software package, you might be wondering how much coding experience you’ll need to succeed as an economist. Do you need a deep knowledge of data science, programming, or coding as well as economic theory to succeed? Most likely, the answer for you will be “not really”. Most economists will not need to be master programmers too. Proficiency with defining your own functions, manipulating data, and understanding the algorithms behind common functions will make your economic analysis life easier. Deeper expertise is probably not required, since the software tools are built to help you do your job – but of course it will give you an advantage. For example, most software packages contain built-in commands that are short, easy to execute, and allow you to dive right into statistical analysis. As an example, to run a linear regression in R, you only need to type one command and tell the program which data to use. After, typing “summary” will spit out a linear regression analysis complete with t-statistics and p-values, the R2 value, F statistics, and many others besides, all computed in a fraction of a second. Many other, more complicated regressions can often be done in similarly easy fashion. Running these simple commands doesn’t require advanced coding experience, but basic proficiency with your chosen software will often come in handy. Say, for instance, you get an error message. Familiarity with your software of choice and the algorithm used to generate your model output will help you clear the error quickly so you can get back to the interesting stuff. Additionally, if you have some coding ability, you will often be able to write your own functions and understand what the existing functions are doing. This gives you extra flexibility when you need to implement a very specific probability distribution, re-parameterize something, adjust a graph to highlight your findings, etc. Overall, the key to being successful in such economic analysis lies in understanding the model output and interpreting it in the context of economic theory, which does not require advanced coding experience. However, if something goes awry, or you need a particularly complicated setup to conduct your analysis, some coding skills are a boon. Studying some of the software packages mentioned in this article will help you get started on your economic analysis journey. Best of luck! Photo Credit: Gilad Lotan on flikr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Economists very often work with statistical software that is used to build economic models and conduct econometric analyses. Learning to work with and analyze data is thus an essential skill for young economists. To be competitive as an economist in the job market, demonstrable skills and experience using some of the popular analysis and forecasting software environments are a must.
The PPF is often defined for two different goods that utilize the same inputs in their production; this can be shown on the vertical and horizontal axes of a graph. Moving further along one axis means the economy produces more of that good. To create the PPF, you need to know the opportunity cost of producing each good. In other words, you must know how many units of good A you must give up in order to produce one more unit of good B at all levels of total production. To demonstrate with a simple example, let’s consider an economy that produces food and electronics. Let’s further assume that the only production inputs in this economy are the labor hours required to produce the goods. The economy’s production can be represented in the following table: Food Electronics Units produced per labor hour 10 5 If the economy has a total endowment of 100 labor hours, then it can produce 1000 units of food or 500 units of electronics by spending all 100 hours on either good. These two points become the intercepts on the PPF graph. If we graph food on the horizontal axis and electronics on the vertical axis, then the x-intercept will be 1000 and the y-intercept will be 500. Now, let’s assume that the amount of labor hours required to produce these goods is constant at all levels of production. That is, regardless of whether we make 1 unit of food or 1000 units of food, it always takes one labor hour to make 10 units of food. Likewise for electronics. Taken together, these facts will produce the following PPF: Figure 1: A simple economy's PPF One useful aspect of the PPF is that it helps us easily see if an economy has reached a Pareto efficient outcome. At every point on the line shown, the economy is using all of its available labor hours to produce some mix of the two goods. This is efficient in an economic productivity sense. But, every non-negative point under the line is also a possible product mix. The problem with them is that they are inefficient. This is because the economy must leave some of its available resources unused to reach a point under the line. In this case, a Pareto improvement can be made by shifting the production mix to any point on the line, where all available inputs are being used. This can be easily seen by starting at any point under the line and moving vertically until the line is reached. In this case, the same amount of food (on the horizontal axis) is produced, but more electronics are produced (vertical axis). We produced more electronics without sacrificing any food, so the economy is strictly better off – a Pareto improvement has been made. What does the slope of the PPF mean? Remember that the slope of a line is a ratio that shows the rate of change of the y variable compared to the x variable. Also remember that we assumed the amount of labor hours used to produce each good is constant at all levels of production – in other words, the tradeoff between the two goods is always the same. This means that the slope of the PPF at any point is the opportunity cost between the two goods! What happens if production in this economy is affected by the law of diminishing returns (a more common scenario)? That is, the more a good is produced, the more labor hours it takes to produce each next unit. This would be the case if the production function was something like a Cobb-Douglas function. In this case, the graph will be curved, as shown below: Figure 2: A simple economy's PPF with diminishing marginal returns Now, the opportunity cost of producing either good changes as you move along the graph. Close to the y-intercept, where we are producing mostly electronics, it costs more and more labor hours to produce the next unit of electronics. Consequently, we are giving up more and more units of food to produce each next unit of electronics. If we start to move down the curve, we start producing more food and less electronics. We can still find the opportunity cost at any of these points by taking the derivative of the function to get the slope. In this case, the opportunity cost for producing more food is higher the closer we get to the x-axis, and vice versa. As a note, economies of scale can be represented in the PPF, too. Economies of scale mean that the opportunity cost for producing a good fall as more of that good is produced. In this case, the graph is likely to have a bowed-inwards (convex) shape. Keeping to our example of food and electronics, in this case moving further along the x-axis would produce increasing amounts of food and fewer amounts of electronics as before. But, the opportunity cost of producing one more unit of food in terms of electronics would decrease as more food is produced. Good to Know The PPF clearly defines the full product mix that a given economy can produce. We have already seen that every point on the line is Pareto efficient. But, for economies that trade with other economies, it is actually possible for a country to consume at a point above its PPF. From the model we’ve studied above (a theoretical economy producing two products in autarky), this is not possible. Every point above the PPF represents an amount of production that the country cannot reach, because it requires more input (in this case labor hours) than is available. For example, if we return to our linear PPF example above, it would be impossible for the country to produce more than 1000 units of food. It can produce 10 units of food in one labor hour, and it has 100 labor hours available, for a maximum production of 1000 units of food. When it comes to consumption, a trading economy is not restricted in the same way, due to the gains from trade that comparative advantage allows. When nations specialize in producing goods that they are relatively more efficient at producing, total output in the world economy can actually be higher than if every country produces only for itself. To see how this works, head over to our article about comparative advantage.
The Production Possibilities Frontier (PPF) is a graph that can be used to describe the production of an economy in macroeconomics, or production decisions by a household or firm in microeconomics. It shows possible combinations of two (or more) products that an economy can make, in one simple graph – hence the name.
The INOMICS Questionnaire: Fratzscher vs Tooze
The titular economic historian, Adam Tooze, was born in London, spending parts of his childhood in England and in Heidelberg, Germany. He earned his BA in Economics from King’s College Cambridge in 1989, and then began his postgraduate studies in Berlin. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics in 1996. From then until 2009, Adam taught at the University of Cambridge. He was then appointed to the Barton M. Biggs Professorship at Yale University. Adam joined his current position in Columbia University’s history department in the summer of 2015. He is well-known for his economic histories (including The Wages of Destruction) which have won him several awards, including the Wolfson History Prize and the Lionel Gelber Prize. Marcel Fratzscher: What is your favorite place on earth? Adam Tooze: I thrive on the intensity and hustle of New York City. I love the cultural density of Europe. But my favorite place right now is a lagoon - “The Cut” - between two of the outer islands of the Abacos in the Bahamas. It’s an extraordinary place. Ravishingly beautiful. Creole. Wild. A bit dangerous. The infrastructure is fragile. Sharks and barracudas in the water. Extreme weather. The historic hurricane Dorian which made landfall on the islands on 1-2 September 2019 wiped out the homes of practically everyone else on the island, including a cottage we called our own. We have rebuilt a house in its place. MF: Outside of economics, what occupation would you have if you could be absolutely anything? AT: I left economics to become a historian. So that is part of my answer. As a boy I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. If I had the talent I would wish to be a visual artist. MF: What is the virtue you appreciate the most? AT: Sincerity. MF: Your all-time favorite figure in economics? AT: John Maynard Keynes. MF: Your # 1 economics blog? AT: In the new substack universe it is Matt Klein’s Overshoot. Amongst the earlier generations of blogs Timothy Taylor’s Conversable Economist is indispensable. In Germany I like Makronom. MF: Your ideal student? AT: Someone who has a profound inner drive, but also has a sense of humor, is open and receptive intellectually to other people and other ideas. MF: What should be done to address a gender bias in research in economics? AT: This is an urgent question for economists. I say this as a man who left economics in large part because of the toxic masculinity to which I was subjected during my training. I found it intellectually unproductive and I didn’t like what it was doing to me. So I got out. I admire both women and men who decide to stay and fight. I worry about what it costs them. I hope they are right that it is possible to change economics from within. When I want encouragement I put my historian’s hat on and remind myself of the truly gigantic transformation that we are collectively undertaking with regard to the gendered division of labor. Two of the academic places which shaped me went co-ed only fifty years ago. In my current department at Columbia in history we are, I believe, at full parity even in the professorial ranks. And there is no reason that it should stop there. MF: What is the most misguided research agenda in economics? AT: I don’t like laying down the law in a negative sense. I avoid zero sum trench wars for intellectual space. I know this is to a degree naive, given the constraints of funding, jobs and who gets the mic matters. So let me give you a reluctant answer: I was profoundly at odds with the Real Business Cycle movement. And I also regret the narrowing effect that the preoccupation with causal identification has had across the social sciences. Like many people I feel that the search for truly water-tight causal demonstrations often leads to triviality. Of course no one would deny the significance of supply-side shocks and the problem of precise causal inference are of abiding interest, but to make either of them into the gold standard is narrowing. I’m afraid that my pluralism doesn’t make me the best warrior for “plural economics”. MF: What is the most promising current research field or issue in economics? AT: I am sure there are many, but the one I know best is macrofinance. Personally, it has been my point of re-entry into economics. Driven by the shock of 2008 and the Eurozone crisis, it is a field that is open to an unusually wide variety of interested folks. MF: Where does economic research have the most influence on policy-making? AT: I observe this as an outsider, but the area of interaction that I am most closely involved with is central banking where, for better and for worse, the boundary between research and policy practice seems very porous indeed. Even someone who is deeply interested in economic history, like Ben Bernanke, can become a top decision-maker. The risk is that the central banks dominate the field of monetary economics to such an extent that it becomes an echo-chamber. To that extent I appreciate the arrival on the central banking scene both of “heterodox” schools of thought and of pragmatic, lawyerly, political types like Jerome Powell and Christine Lagarde. MF: On what issues should policy listen more to economists? AT: Answering this questions depends on a judgment both about policy and economics. Given my policy preferences and my doctrinal preferences in economics, which group of economists would it be safe and beneficial for policy-makers to listen to? In the area of climate change, I tend to think that economists have been listened to too much. Policy makers have also listened to the “wrong” economists too often with regard to fiscal policy. The group of economists that I think it would be safe and beneficial for policy-makers to listen to more are economists in macrofinance. As I say, that is a subfield that was developed to address financial instability and crisis, to bridge the divide between finance and macroeconomics. MF: What is your career advice to a young economics researcher? AT: Take care of your mental health. The above article first appeared in the INOMICS Handbook 2022, which you can download on our site. Header Image Credit: Photos provided.
The following article first appeared in the INOMICS Handbook 2022. Download the INOMICS Handbook Professor Marcel Fratzscher, esteemed macroeconomist and president of the DIW Berlin, once again asks questions about economics and life in general to a peer in the 2022 edition of the INOMICS Handbook Questionnaire. This time, he has the pleasure of being joined by renowned economic historian Adam Tooze, who generously agreed to take the hot seat in this exchange. Thus, the back-and-forth has been dubbed Fratzscher vs. Tooze, as is tradition. What follows is a dive into the beauty of wild places, the gender bias still present in economics, the link between policy makers and central banks, the limits of the search for perfect causality in the social sciences, and even more. Tooze’s perspective is unique and fresh, and is sure to be an interesting read you won’t want to miss.
The game is an interesting one from an economics standpoint, since players must collect and trade resources, invest in the growth of their own miniature economy, barter with others, and make decisions about trade-offs and opportunity costs at every turn. In Catan, the person who builds the most efficient and fastest-growing economy almost always wins. In this article, I aim to shed some light on the economics of Settlers of Catan, and show how it reflects some economics principles and real-world concepts. Without further ado, let’s dive in. The Foundations of a Productive Economy In Catan, resources are gained by a roll of two six-sided dice each turn. This means that possible numbers rolled are between 2 and 12, with the number 7 being the most likely. On the board, each resource tile has a number from 2 to 12 on it (except 7 – more on that later), and when that number is rolled, every settlement touching that tile gets one resource from it. Cities get two. Clearly, it is better to get your settlements and cities on the more commonly rolled numbers. On average this will yield more resources, putting you at an advantage ceteris paribus. Those tiles with more likely numbers represent land that is more productive. In the real world, especially for developing economies, concentrating production on the most productive land is also the best way to build the foundation for a healthy economy. Often, this means early cities developed along waterways and in areas with productive soil for agriculture. But, sheer productivity isn’t everything in life or Catan. Some resources are more valuable than others, and the opportunity cost of each one changes depending on the game and your particular economy. In Catan, you need brick and wood to build roads, which let you expand and build more settlements in new places. Settlements cost a brick, wood, wheat, and sheep to build, and they allow you to collect more resources when a resource tile they touch has its number rolled. Expanding your territory and building on new spaces is quite important, then, especially because each settlement prevents anyone else from building in an adjacent space. Basic economic theory tells us that having more input will yield more output, and on an island where real estate providing those inputs is scarce, it pays to get there first! Realizing Economic Growth via Agglomeration Settlements help you expand, but to realize economies of scale by increasing your economic efficiency, you’ll need cities. Cities are built by upgrading an existing settlement using two wheat and three ore. As mentioned before, cities gain resources more quickly, and a city built early in the game can grant a big advantage due to this fact. This isn’t just true of Catan. Agglomeration economies in the post-industrialization world mean that cities are the centers of economic activity in modern economies, too. As more and more production concentrates in one area, the economy benefits due to economies of scale, knowledge spillovers between local industries, labor market pooling, increased opportunities for local residents, and many other factors. The last thing that can be built with your Catan resources are Development Cards. Rather than representing microloans from the IMF or World Bank for your burgeoning island economy, these cards grant different one-time-use powers that can tip the scales in your favor. They can be thought of as purchasable positive shocks to aggregate supply. An example is the monopoly card that lets one player take all resources of a certain type currently in play at that moment. Another grants two roads for free, a boon that many economies would love to experience. There are also ports in Catan which allow players to trade resources more efficiently. Normally, players can trade with the “bank” (i.e., the game box) by giving up four cards of one resource to get one card of a different resource. This is a brutally expensive exchange rate, but ports give players the opportunity to get more favorable rates for certain resources. In the real world, international trade allows countries to leverage the power of comparative advantage to consume more goods than they could have otherwise. Ports in Catan approximate this fact by improving your exchange rate for trading resources. One key difference, though, is that trade between players is always possible with zero transaction costs. This dilutes the importance of port cities compared to a real economy. If trading costs and distances were factored into the game, no doubt ports would see an increase in strategic value closer to their real-world counterparts. So, building settlements on ports and upgrading settlements to cities are the two main ways players can start to economically overpower their competition in Catan. Analyzing the Relative Value of Catan’s Resources That was a lot, so let’s briefly review what each built object can do and what they cost: Object Benefits Cost Settlement Collect 1 resource each time a number touching it is rolled, gain 1 victory point Brick (1), Wood (1), Sheep (1), Wheat (1) Road More opportunities to build settlements, 2 points if you have the longest continuous road (“Longest Road”) Brick (1), Wood (1) Development Card Random one-time-use economic benefits (or possibly a victory point) Sheep (1), Wheat (1), Ore (1) City Doubles the resource income of the settlement it upgrades, gain 1 extra victory point Wheat (2), Ore (3) Examining the last column in the table provides some interesting insights about the relative economic value of each resource. First, wheat appears in almost every single row. The only thing that doesn’t require wheat to build is a road, which is the cheapest item and only indirectly contributes to economic growth. So, having a source of wheat income is very important at all stages of the game! The next obvious thing that jumps out from the table is that cities are the only buildable object that takes more than one resource per type to build. Cities are also the most expensive thing you can build, requiring 5 resource cards. But, the player with the earliest city usually has a big advantage since cities increase economic output quite drastically. So, the best Catan economies must ensure they have access to (or can trade for) reliable sources of wheat and ore. One last thing to note about the relative value of resources is their relative scarcity. Each game of Catan will have four spaces each of wood, sheep, and wheat, but only three brick and three ore spaces. This means that, ceteris paribus, brick and ore are relatively more scarce, and therefore more valuable. The number placements on the island can also greatly change which resources are more or less valuable. Basic theory of supply and demand tells us that if a specific resource has only low-probability numbers on its spaces, it is very likely to be rare and therefore more valuable than normal. Picture credit: Pixabay.com The Temporal Value of Resources What may be less obvious from the table above is how time affects the value of each resource. Certain resources become more or less important as the game continues. The value of expanding an economy is highest at the beginning of the game, when the island is mostly unsettled and people’s incomes are lowest. This is akin to a market that is underdeveloped. Often, the first firm to begin production in a new market has the easiest time securing market share, and has an advantage over following firms – who must outdo them in some way to compete. We refer to this as a first-mover advantage in economics (for more on this, see Stackelberg Competition). Although Catan players are not “producing” - rather, they are receiving a random resource bounty - the “first mover” in this sense will have the best choices of new expansions available. They will gain an advantage, all else being equal, in terms of accessing new numbers and resources. So in the early turns, building roads and settlements as fast as possible to claim new territory is important. This means there will be a relatively high demand for brick and wood in the early stages of the game. Towards the end of the game, when land has been mostly claimed, players must focus on building upward instead of outward. Yet again, this reflects real economic phenomena; once the more limited factor of production (productive land) is mostly being used, economies must focus on increasing their efficiency and intensive use of capital to continue growing. Thus, later on in the game of Catan, wheat and ore become very important since they are the city-building resources. Meanwhile, brick and wood become nearly useless since expanding becomes more difficult and less valuable as the most productive land is claimed. Savvy Catan players will know this, and prepare their economies to eventually transform or trade off their brick and wood for ore and wheat (perhaps by using ports). This transition process mirrors how developing economies change over time, as well. Most developing economies tend to produce goods from raw materials, often shipping finished products over to more advanced economies for sale. As a country grows richer and more developed, it may begin offshoring production of primary goods, while service industries flourish. These economies do not stop producing end goods from raw materials, but most productive land is already being used, and much more of the economy is focused on increasing productivity. This is done through realizing economies of scale, increasing investment into human capital, and encouraging innovation. In Catan, this is represented by the growth of cities as the island becomes almost fully settled. Despite the methods available for increasing economic efficiency, it is unrealistic for a single economy to be entirely self-sufficient. Significant gains from trade can be had when countries focus on their comparative advantages and trade to increase overall welfare. Which finally brings us to the last aspect of your Catan economy… International Trade & Politics There are a few key ways that players can interact in Catan and hopefully gain an advantage. Those familiar with game theory should have a leg up in this aspect of the game. First, you are free to make trades with other players as you please on your turns. Often on your turn, you may lack one or two important cards. You can ask the other players if they have something you want and trade on a bartering basis. Remember that you can also trade with the bank, but this is quite expensive without a port. Trading with players is usually a better option. Players can also more directly interfere with one another. When someone rolls a 7, no resources are collected. Instead, the player who rolled gets to place the knight (also known as the robber, or bandit, or even “Gary the angry snowman” – if you play with my family!) on any space. The knight blocks resource collection on that space until it is removed - a significant negative supply shock that just might send your economy into a recession. There are massive economic and political implications for rolling a 7 and being in charge of the knight’s placement. Most players will be unhappy with you for blocking one of their spaces. If you block someone, you can severely cripple their production for a length of time. But, you may lose them as a future trading partner for your crimes against their economy! Often, players will try to convince others that a certain person is winning and thus they should be blocked. But, this can backfire; a particularly outspoken player can create political enemies, even if their reasoning is solid. Informal sanctions and blockades abound late in the game, especially as multiple players start to close in on 10 points and try to subvert one another. So, placing the knight is a delicate balancing act of slowing down the player with the best economy (or limiting the most dangerous opponent, if you’re in the lead) while also maintaining the best “international” political relationships you can to preserve your access to economically beneficial free trade. Get Ready, Get Set, Settle! Catan is a game that is easy to pick up, but has surprising depth. Many principles of macro- and microeconomics are at play, which along with randomness lend to Catan’s replayability. If there are any economists out there who have yet to play the game, I would encourage you to give it a try. With your knowledge of economic theory, you just might become the best settler that ever was! Header image picture credit: dograapps via Pixabay (free for use under the Pixabay content license)
Klaus Teuber’s Settlers of Catan is a popular board game that has become a mainstay of friendly gatherings across the globe. For the uninitiated, in Catan up to 4 players compete to be the first one with 10 victory points. Points are gained by building houses (“settlements”), cities, and roads on a heretofore unsettled island rife with natural resources. Catan has nearly limitless replay value - with 3,695,814,682,560,000 (over 3 quadrillion!) different unique board layouts using just the base rules. Chances are, you’ve heard of Catan even if you don’t particularly love board games.
So what does autarky entail, exactly? A nation that is completely isolated from the outside world and refuses to trade or interact with other countries as much as possible would be described as isolationist. This type of nation would have a fully autarkic economy. They would refuse international trade and only consume goods produced within the country. This is a closed economy, and we would describe it as being “in autarky”. In the modern world, autarky is a state that is very hard to maintain. Global trade has become more interconnected, cheaper, and faster than it was in the past. The benefits of isolationist economic policies are hard to argue for in the modern age, especially with examples of comparative advantage and arguments against trade barriers. In fact, most economists believe that free trade is beneficial for economic growth, while trade barriers resulting from protectionist policies are a hindrance. Unsurprisingly then, most countries in the modern age trade with one another even if they have some protectionist policies like tariffs in place for some industries or goods. Being completely self-sufficient (“in autarky”) is a rare case in the modern age, although countries may seek to achieve autarky in certain strategic areas (energy supply, for instance). An example of a largely autarkic nation is North Korea. It is a nation that faces heavy economic sanctions and has few opportunities to trade with other countries. Even nations that will trade with it, like China, have a much larger volume of trade with other countries due to the low production of goods for export in North Korea. So, the majority of its output is produced and consumed by North Koreans. Of course, even North Korea still has some trade with other countries – like China – and so isn’t fully autarkic. Good to Know The term “autarky” should not be confused with “autocracy”. The latter is a system of government where one person rules with absolute power (i.e., a dictator). Nations governed by an autocracy may have very nationalistic tendencies, and may also have protectionist trade policies, but that does not make them fully autarkic. Nor does a country that maintains a high degree of autarky necessitate any specific political structure. Autarky does, however, have appeal for political reasons. Politicians may argue for trade barriers to protect domestic industries (even though this causes deadweight loss), or governments might want to limit their economic dependence on other nations for security reasons. In these cases, a certain degree of autarkic policy may be called for. Autarkic arguments are also central to many populist policies and platforms, which have become more widespread in the past decade (i.e., the “Make America Great Again” movement in the United States). Often, these platforms call for domestic protections to support or revive local industries as a central feature of their policy. Unfortunately, many of these policy proposals downplay or fail to take into account the detrimental effects of both increased trading costs and less open and efficient markets on the economy. There is a risk of artificially inflating consumer prices due to implementing too many inefficient protections. For example, imagine that importing a good (like a car) is cheaper than making it domestically for a certain country. If that country decides to implement tariffs on foreign cars to protect domestic production, this is economically inefficient. Consumers will face artificially higher prices and fewer car choices than they would have if cars were freely traded, so overall utility is diminished.
Autarky’s definition, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “economic independence or self-sufficiency”. It can also be spelled “autarchy”. This word is seldom used outside of academic contexts like economics or political science. Unfortunately, it may be sprung on you in economics courses without any warning, and since it is an actual word it may not be explained.
Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics (JEL E)
How to Find Student Accommodation in a Foreign Country
INOMICS has partnered with Uniplaces to help students find accommodation abroad. This means that on articles related to student accommodation or housing, we may make some money if a user clicks through to an affiliate link and makes a qualifying purchase. INOMICS users also gain a 15% discount on the Uniplaces Service Fee at the time of booking payment (the discount of your promo code must be entered in the payment session before sending the reservation request). Use the promo code: UP15INOMICS. However, these posts are not sponsored posts. Through your university Wherever you're travelling for your study abroad, it's likely that the university which you're visiting will be able to help you with your move. Many universities have an international students office, or a visiting students office, which is there to help you with any issues you have – including dealing with paperwork, help with language problems, and finding accommodation. They may have a list of reliable private accommodation in the area, or a message board on which staff and students can post if they have a room to rent. Some universities even have their own residence halls or other campus housing options, which you can rent by the semester, usually for not too much money. The advantage of going through your university is that people who know the local area can advise you on good locations, and what a reasonable cost is. The distance to campus is often manageable, too. The disadvantage is that university-provided accommodation can tend to focus on being safe and in less exciting areas of town. If you want somewhere more adventurous in a lively area, then you should consider renting privately. Through personal contacts When you're moving to a new country, often you won't know many people there and so won't have a social network to help you out. But before you go, ask your friends and use social media to find out if there are any friends-of-friends living in or near to the area you're traveling to. If you can find someone who lives there and has a sofa that you can sleep on for a few days, this can be a more relaxed introduction to the city and the chance to meet someone new. Ideally you would have a place to stay for a week or two and then when you arrive you can start house hunting. Searching for housing is much easier when you're already in the area – you can call agents, arrange viewings, and bring along a friend if you're having language issues. Online Search Options If you're looking for a short-term rental flat for a few weeks to a few months, then you can check websites like Uniplaces, HousingAnywhere, or even Airbnb. There are often short-let flats advertised, and you can see photos and descriptions of the spaces even if you can't visit them in advance. Of course, it's hard to say whether the flat is to your taste, whether you will like the local area, or how good the transport connections are, until you actually arrive at the place. For this reason, if you're going to use a website to find your accommodation, it's a good idea to start a rent for just a few weeks at first. If you find that you like the accommodation very much, you can try to extend your stay or choose to live nearby. But if you don't like the place, you know you only need to be there for a short time, and you can look in another area of town. Newspapers and Classified Ads Finally, if you speak the local language already, don't forget to check out newspapers and classified ads in magazines. Depending on the country you're moving to, you might find even more options for accommodation which are advertised offline rather than online. This can be difficult, but if it works out, you can often save considerable money by avoiding estate fees or over-priced private accommodation. If you do go this route, make sure you check up on local laws regarding letting, and that you're aware of your tenants rights. When in doubt, ask for a written contract which you can show to someone at your new university. They should be able to advise you if the terms of rental look reasonable.
If you're going abroad for your studies, either for a few weeks or a few months, you'll need to deal with some practical issues. One such practical concern is finding student housing – how can you find international student housing when you're not currently in the country? To help you through this, we're sharing some tips on how to find a place to live while you're studying abroad.
In our experience, using short in-class games is a great way to engage students. In addition, it makes it easier to get across the underlying economic theory and bring out the implications of the resulting predictions. There is also evidence to suggest that introducing games can have a positive impact on students’ learning. These games typically take between 20 and 40 minutes to run. During this time, students make decisions and find out the implications of their payoffs (winnings) at the end of the round. Then, in subsequent rounds they can respond to the outcomes from their own and their classmates’ previous behaviour. Traditionally, in-class games were played in a paper-based format in face-to-face classes. For example, experimental economics pioneer Charles Holt demonstrated that ordinary playing cards can be used to facilitate the running of games. However, over the last ten years, many online versions of economics games have been developed. Students can play these games on laptops, tablets or even mobile phones. As a result, it is now possible to play online games in the classroom or even through remote delivery. The following websites provide, typically for free, a wide range of single player and interactive games covering topics including game theory, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, the environment, and finance: Vecon Set up by Charles Holt, this site provides a wide range of games for free. These include classic lottery and intertemporal decision making games and a host of market-based games as well. They are all presented with simple graphics and easy to use interfaces. The results can be presented in graphic form and saved to be revisited in subsequent classes. Economics-Games Again free, this site provides a range of single and multiplayer games. These include both simple games and more involved simulations, for example on pricing strategies and competition in markets. ClassEx This is another site that provides a wide range of games for free. One very nice feature is that instructors can access the code underlying these games. It is straightforward to learn how this code works. Then, the games can easily be modified to suit your needs. Furthermore, it is also possible to create your own games. This feature also allows you to imbed student questionnaires at the start, during and after playing a game. Moblab Accessing the games on this site requires a subscription fee. The games are presented with sophisticated graphics and are based on a range of real-world settings. There is the option to have students play games against pre-programmed robotic players. In addition, polling software is embedded, and it is possible to set assignments based on gameplay. A good way to learn how these online games work is to set yourself up as the instructor on a laptop or desktop and as separate players on your phone or tablet. After spending 10 minutes or so playing a few rounds, it will become much clearer how the game works from both the tutor’s and the students’ perspectives. In addition to these suggestions, the Economics Network has a range of resources to help with using games in the classroom. We encourage you to experiment with this engaging method of teaching! This article was produced in cooperation with the Economics Network, the largest and longest-established academic organisation devoted to improving the teaching and learning of economics in higher education. Learn more about the Economics Network here.
The playing of simple, short games has become an increasingly common way to teach a range of key concepts and theories in economics.
Finance Option #1: Assistantships, Teaching and Research Most major universities offer teaching or research assistantships. Teaching assistants will typically be placed with a professor to assist with one or more courses. This could include grading, tutoring students, helping to organize assignments, and even leading lectures in your area of study. Assistantships provide tuition remission in addition to stipends and are a great way to get a taste for working as a professor. A research assistantship will likely pair students with one professor or a team of professors working on a specific research project. Most assistantships will be offered on a merit-based program, but you should nevertheless reach out to your specific department and make them aware that you’re interested. It is not uncommon to be offered an assistantship mid-semester or midyear. Look outside your own department, too, especially if there are opportunities to work with Deans or leadership offices, as these also tend to provide opportunities. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> Finance Option #2: Fellowships and Grants Fellowships are awarded to PhD students; they are incredibly competitive and often are not available to students until they are nearing the completion of their academic work, but there are exceptions. Fellowships are typically based on your research background and scholarly promise, so invest time in early years of the program developing a solid academic profile for consideration in these competitive offerings. A research grant is generally offered to programs or research projects working on a specific research design or vision. Grant programs will assist with the funding to complete the project, such as needed materials or travel associated with collecting data. Keep in touch with professors in your field and email news lists or online sites relevant to your department. Finance Option #3: A Night Program/ Part Time Program With the recognition that some students cannot attend PhD courses full time, there are a growing number of doctoral programs with flexible options. Some have portions of the program that can be completed online, while others have part-time schedules to allow you to maintain full-time employment (and use tuition remission programs through their company). Still others operate programs on a night basis to allow you to study or earn an income during day hours. If you’re planning to move near the campus anyway, consider getting some “hands on” experience in your field (for example, an urban affairs student might take a position at the city manager’s office). When you’re at interviews for academic positions, you can highlight your academic and “real world” experience as a unique combination. Finance Option #4: Mixed Bag Many PhDs fund their studies with several different options. Some will take out loans as financial aid, since in many countries government-backed student loans have better interest rates compared to private lenders. Others pick up part-time jobs, work as substitute teachers or obtain jobs directly at the university. Scholarships are also available at the doctoral level. Consider searching for them with keywords such as “my department” “PhD scholarship”. Universities, corporations, and communities are known for sponsoring these and they are generally merit-based. Funding a PhD is a unique challenge. But rest assured that many have successfully navigated this path before. Investigate your options, remember what your goals are, and stay patient. It is possible to become an expert in your field, and by combining a smart approach and a persistent attitude you too will find the (financial) means to do so.
A PhD can be a very expensive endeavor regardless of your background. There are many funding opportunities to finance your economics PhD and they are all worth considering prior to committing to a specific program. Remember that there are options, and that ultimately most graduate programs will view you as an asset based on what you can give back to the program through research, assisting other professors, or even obtaining grants. So, although you’re competing to get into their programs, they should also be “competing” to offer you the most options for financing. If you plan to start your PhD application this autumn, you can also download our free guide "How to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics".
Clearly, this is a very undesirable economic state. Low growth and high unemployment mean that there are few opportunities for people to become employed or seek better jobs, while high inflation continually erodes the value of people’s money over time. This can spiral an economy into a recession situation complicated by the fact that promoting growth to end the recession will make inflation, and people’s financial situations, even worse. The term “stagflation” was popularized in the 1970s (although its first use came as early as 1965), reflecting similar economic situations in the United Kingdom and United States. This was the first time in modern economic history that stagflation had occurred, taking economists and policy makers by surprise. Several factors contributed to its onset. One commonly cited factor is an oil trade embargo from OPEC countries that began in 1973 and caused energy prices to rise sharply, creating a feedback effect that increased the prices of many other goods. This is an example of a supply shock. In this case it contributed to high inflation, which reached 18.0% in the UK and 13.5% in the US in 1980. However, other factors had already started developing stagflationary pressures before the oil embargo. In the US, the federal government had a high budget deficit following the Vietnam War, but the government was unwilling to raise taxes to eliminate the deficit. In addition, the Federal Reserve was focused on promoting economic growth to combat unemployment and the multiple recessions that occurred in the 1970s, which meant that interest rates were kept low throughout the decade. Low interest rates disincentivize saving and encourage spending, which contributes to growth - but also inflationary pressure. In the U.K., it is often argued that policymakers did not appreciate the role that monetary policy could play in controlling inflation. This was despite the warnings of Iain MacLeod, who is sometimes credited with coining the term stagflation. He warned Parliament in 1965 of the dangers of simultaneous high inflation and unemployment, which the economy was even then trending towards. Regardless of the factors contributing to stagflation, politicians and economists were caught off guard. This was partly due to the fact that many of them believed unemployment and inflation shared an inverse relationship, a belief reflected in the Philips Curve. This economic moment proved that the Philips Curve was not a true, stable relationship, but had been just a circumstance during the decades prior. To deal with stagflation, typically a country needs to reduce the amount of spending in the economy (i.e., reduce the velocity of money) to allow inflationary pressures to ease up. A central bank can encourage this by raising interest rates. Higher interest rates, ceteris paribus, incentivize people to spend less and save more. This is because savings grow more quickly with a higher interest rate, while the opportunity cost of holding cash is greater as it is devalued faster. This is partly how the U.S. was able to stave off stagflation in the early 1980’s. The Chair of the Federal Reserve at the time, Paul Volcker, became heavily unpopular after he raised interest rates in the midst of the economic struggle. He also tightened the money supply to reduce inflation more directly, by “restraining growth in money and credit”. However, these unpopular moves were ultimately successful, and by the end of his appointment Volcker’s policies had led to a sustainable drop in the inflation level. Unemployment soon fell as well, and the economy was primed for excellent growth after 1982. Good to Know This first major period of stagflation was a boon to the ideas of Milton Friedman and the monetarist school of thought. Monetarism states that money is non-neutral in the economy and must be managed well, in opposition to Keynesian ideas that money is just a nominal tool and doesn’t affect the economy on its own. These once-dominant Keynesian ideas were proved lacking after stagflation. However, Keynesian economists learned from stagflation and updated their models - as economists often do when challenged by new evidence. This led to the formation of the New Keynesian school of thought, an evolution of the old Keynesian ideas but updated for the modern era. References Bryan, M. (n.d.). The Great Inflation. Federal Reserve History. Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation.
Stagflation is a macroeconomic phenomenon. It is an amalgamation of the words “stagnant” and “inflation”, which is a reflection of its meaning. Economists use this term to describe an economy that is suffering from low growth, high unemployment, and high inflation.
Public Economics & Economic Policy (JEL H)
Recent research has suggested that feedback is more effective if we stop seeing it as an event that students receive, but rather as a conversation enabling students to gain a deeper understanding of the material. Effective feedback should be timely, encourage students, and provide useful tips for how to improve. Audio feedback - whereby the instructor records a clip for the student to listen to - is an easy-to-implement alternative to written feedback that acts as the beginning of this conversation. Audio feedback may have better engagement from students and be easier to provide in a timely manner. Compared with written feedback, it can be more interesting and unique as students feel the person marking their work is talking to them. As students perceive verbal feedback as more personal than written feedback, they respond more positively since it feels closer to a dialogue. This short guide can help you get started with providing audio feedback. How can I provide audio feedback? Most virtual learning environments (including Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas) and marking platforms (such as Turnitin) have the functionality to record audio feedback. This allows users to record directly on the platform, making it significantly easier and quicker. The audio feedback is then directly linked to the corresponding submission, so there is nothing more you need to do. If you don’t have access to a marking platform that allows audio feedback, or you want the opportunity to edit or add a transcript, you can record locally on a desktop/laptop or even a smartphone. Then, you can use an app to manage and send your feedback. There are many free apps and software packages available to record audio feedback that, in many cases, also allow you to edit the recordings. However, it should be noted that the sound quality might be affected by the microphone or the software used. If you are manually recording the audio feedback for a large course, make sure you carefully name the files, so that you can easily link the feedback to the correct student! Useful tips Providing an appropriate amount of feedback is important; too much or too little can make the feedback less useful for students. One way to ensure that you offer an appropriate amount is to set an average recording time. It is usually a good idea to avoid providing very long feedback, to prevent the student’s attention from drifting, and to ensure that the feedback is concise. In fact, many learning platforms have a maximum recording time of 3 to 5 minutes. An audio recording of between 40 seconds and 2 minutes should be adequate for a piece of student work. Before you start, you might need to do a few practice runs. This will help you ensure that you do not exceed the maximum recording duration, understand the amount of content that can be covered within the available time, and ensure the recording is audible. Decide on a specific structure for giving feedback to students. It is always nice to start in a friendly way, such as addressing the student by name. Some instructors find it easier to provide holistic feedback by connecting comments to the marking criteria, while others prefer to address the work by section. Use the structure that is most appropriate, but remember to include suggestions on how to improve for future work, as this tends to be very important to students. One of the reasons that students prefer audio feedback is that it can convey nuance through tone of voice, which may not be captured by written feedback. It is often helpful to keep notes as you are reading an assignment. The notes do not need to be detailed, as they should be used as guidelines to make sure that you focus on the key areas for improvement. With audio feedback, students are often forgiving of minor issues, such as grammatical errors or stumbling over words. Such mistakes are common in spoken language. You should not feel that you need to delete or redo the feedback so long as any verbal mistakes do not affect its quality. That being said, if you are not happy with the recording, it is often quicker to redo it than to edit it. Do not forget to inform students that you have provided audio feedback, show them how to access it, and explain what to do in case they face technical issues. If you don’t let students know about the feedback, they might not notice there is an audio file. Or, they may think that their assignment has not been marked or that they didn’t receive feedback. Audio feedback can be inclusive as it supports students with different learning styles who might prefer to listen rather than read. Recent research has shown a strong link between the type of feedback students prefer and their perceived learning style. Nonetheless, there might be students who strongly prefer written feedback. To help these students, and to make audio feedback more accessible for students with disabilities (or to overcome significant language barriers for non-native speakers) you may wish to provide transcripts. Some recording apps offer direct AI or human transcription of your recordings. Windows 10 offers a fully integrated voice recognition function, but there are also websites such as Veed or 360 Converter that are very accurate and easy to use. Written and oral feedback might be used as complements. You might want to use one to give generic comments, and the other to focus on specifics. For example, written feedback can be in the form of an evaluation rubric with a Likert scale that captures performance in a range of criteria, while audio feedback can focus on particular weaknesses, or vice versa. Key things to avoid Make sure the assignment is appropriate for this type of feedback. For example, when marking mathematical problems, it may be easier to identify where there are errors by directly writing on the students’ work. This may be more difficult to express verbally. Another aspect that should be considered is the length of the assignment. A long piece of academic work, such as a dissertation, might not be ideal for audio feedback. In this case, audio feedback might not be sufficiently detailed to cover the key elements, or the recording would be overly long if it did so. Technical issues may arise when creating a recording and/or accessing it. Some web browsers might not allow you to use the audio feedback function or might not have created an audio file after the recording has finished. This is very simple to check, and using a different browser (such as Firefox or Chrome) can easily correct the issue. If problems persist, you might need to check the browser’s privacy settings for your microphone. Students might experience similar issues accessing or listening to the recording – again, this is likely to be related to the web browser. To find out more about audio feedback, see the Assessment and Feedback Handbook produced by The Economics Network. This article was produced in cooperation with the Economics Network, the largest and longest-established academic organisation devoted to improving the teaching and learning of economics in higher education. Learn more about the Economics Network here.
Good feedback helps students to understand the scale of any weaknesses in their understanding. To be effective, it will also be timely, encourage students and provide useful tips for how to improve in the future.