Browse our job listings in international economics 1. Work as an analyst One of the most popular career paths for economists generally, and for international economists specifically, is working as an analyst. This is a broad term which refers to anyone who performs work in which data is analysed in order to find particular patterns or to determine the best course of action. There are many types of analyst role which an international economist could take on – from financial analysts, who analyse businesses' equity and securities, to research analysts, who dig through data which is collected as part of a research project, to policy analysts, who work on investigating the effects of public policies to see whether they are effective. You could find a job as an analyst at a private think tank such as the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, in a business such as Reis, a commercial real estate analytics company or for the federal or local government. 2. Work in the finance industry Another big employer of economists is the finance industry. Having a knowledge of international affairs and international money systems is highly useful in an increasingly international finance market. You might find work with a bank or an insurance company, working in a role such as financial analyst, financial management, or investment banker. Work in the finance industry tends to be very well compensated but is also high-pressure and with long working hours expected. If you love to throw yourself fully into projects and don't mind putting your social life on the back burner for a time, then you could find work in the finance industry to be very rewarding. However, if you're looking for a job with good work-life balance or a strong social outlook, this may not be the industry for you. <11an>limit:2;categories:jobs|conferences;disciplines:International Economics (JEL F)</11an> 3. Work for a global organisation A way to put your specialist knowledge of international economics to good use is to work for an international organisation such as the IMF. The global money system is vast and complex, and the organisations which try to regulate it are becoming more important as globalisation keeps spreading. In a global organisation you might find a role performing research, promoting particular policies, or navigating national and international law as applied to finance. This kind of work is suited to someone who has an open mind and is understanding of different cultural and political viewpoints. It's the kind of work which requires being able to work with other people from all over the world. 4. Work for the government Finally, one obvious employer for international economists is the government. Economists work in all branches of government, but international economics is a particular match with the governmental branches dedicated to diplomacy and international relations. The United States Foreign Service, for example, employs economics officers who design and oversee economic programs in developing countries. This kind of work is not well paid but can be greatly personally rewarding as it puts the skills of an international economist to direct use in improving the lives of people abroad. It requires the ability to collaborate effectively and to manage complex projects, making it well suited to people who are highly organised and able to juggle many different priorities at once.
If you're an economist and you're thinking about working in the field of international economics, you might be wondering what kind of career options are open to you. Here are a few suggestions for jobs which you could do.
This changed in 2018, in America, when the cause was reinvigorated by political upstart and now darling of the left, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Since sensationally winning New York’s 14th congressional district, Cortez has helped drag green policy, and the GND in particular, to the centre of the race for the Democrat Presidential nomination, gaining it international exposure. Meanwhile, weekly climate marches in many of the world’s major cities, the emergence of Greta Thunberg, and the action of groups like Extinction Rebellion have ensured the climate crisis now tops the news agenda everywhere. Rid of the reputation that had it dismissed as outlandish and unfundable, the GND has surged in popularity, and according to a YouGov Blue poll, its core policies enjoy support from a majority of Americans. Despite this fandom, detractors remain and its future is far from guaranteed. Indeed, upcoming elections in the US and UK, both certain to be polarised, will likely be pivotal in deciding whether this once fledgling and radical idea, seeded in a cramped inner-city living room, ever comes to maturation. Browse our job listings here What does it address? Quite simply: climate change and inequality. The GND is underpinned by two fundamental and interconnected observations. The first is that the current economic system is failing: the pockets of corporate polluters and billionaires are lined, while working class families, communities of colour, and other minorities are exposed to stagnant wages, toxic pollution, and dead-end jobs. The second recognises that the climate crisis magnifies these systemic injustices. Hard-hit communities are typically hit hardest by storms, droughts, flooding etc., as entrenched inequality deprives them of the resources required to adapt, cope and, in some cases, live. It follows that climate change and inequality can only be addressed together. This is the GND’s starting point. Through the mobilisation of vast public resources, the GND plans a transition from an economy built on fossil fuels and exploitation to one driven by clean energy and dignified work. Owing to its scale and widespread appropriation this has been articulated in various ways, with plans citing different costs and diverging deadlines. That said, at its core there remains a set of largely consistent aims which include: transferring 100% of the nation’s power generation to renewables; retrofitting all buildings to ensure they are energy efficient; decarbonising agriculture, transportation and manufacturing; and investing in drawdown technologies that extract carbon and other greenhouse gases from the air. Committed adoption of these goals would, in turn, make green technology, expertise, and services a major U.S. export, increasing GDP and allowing America to assume a leadership role in guiding other countries to carbon-neutral economies. Inequality and empowering workers The nature of the reforms, ubiquitous as they are, mean a diversity of jobs would be created everywhere. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ proposed GND, which borrows heavily from Cortez’, estimates it would generate as many as 20 million ‘good paying, union jobs with strong benefits and safety standards’, many of which would be reserved for low-income families and communities of colour. With unemployment in the US standing at around 6 million, job creation of this magnitude would, in effect, serve as a de facto job guarantee for all those actively seeking work, realising, in the process, a staple-demand of the socialist movement. Such widespread opportunity would also empower the broader working class by defanging the threat of unemployment, the greatest barrier to organising for improved working conditions. The effects of this could be huge, for the fear of perpetual unemployment has long-been the capitalist’s trump card, helping keep the scales tipped, forcibly, in his favour. It’s threat is so potent it routinely cows workers to accept wages too low to provide a decent standard of living, and has all but forbidden them to unionise - they simply have no recourse. The consequences are stark and worsening: 3.1 million Americans in full-time work now live below the poverty-line, and increasing numbers of children are growing up poor. A job guarantee would go some way to arrest this growing exploitation: it would naturally expand trade union rights, and strengthen, more generally, the position of the vulnerable worker. Who is to pay? The chief criticism of its still many detractors is the cost, the claim that it’s financially unfeasible. And it’s true, there’s no doubt it will be expensive. Its proponents, however, suggest that far from bankrupting the country, the ‘suite of economic reforms’, as at times it’s been called, would actually pay for itself - after 15 years if Sanders is to be believed. Although the exact economics of the project are predictably hazy, many remain confident that through a combination of higher taxes, reduced military spending, repealed fossil fuel subsidies, increased revenue from new energy, and income tax generated from millions of new jobs, it can yet be funded. Vagaries aside, it’s clear the cost of inaction will be much, much higher. Every passing day serves as a reminder of why we need change on the scale of the Green New Deal. Every drought, hurricane, or flood, every story of a child going hungry, a parent enduring long-term unemployment, or a worker being exploited, adds to the growing evidence of its necessity. Inequality and climate change threaten not just our dignity but our existence, and continued inaction, which would likely be deadly, makes us all complicit. Yes, a Green New Deal is a huge undertaking and highly ambitious. But does that make it unworkable? Wars have previously mobilised countries on similar scales to that which is now required. Why not again? The mother of two-birds-one-stone solutions may well be in sight; it’s time we grabbed it.
Although recently popularised in America, the Green New Deal (GND) was actually born during the early days of the 2007/8 financial crisis, in a small flat in London. The owner of the flat was analyst and foreseer of the crisis, Ann Pettifor; the occasion was a get-together of environmentalists and economists who had convened to draft a plan they hoped would both ‘transform the economy and protect the ecosystem’. Unfortunately for the London attendees, the prevailing political currents post crash proved especially hostile toward their idea, and prioritised, instead, principles of fiscal discipline and austerity, while largely sidelining issues of climate. And as long as such consensus reigned, the nascent GND was forced to lie dormant, far from political discourse.
Public Economics & Economic Policy (JEL H)
Agricultural and Environmental Economics (JEL Q)
The Economic Benefits of Renewable Energy
Compared to the roughly 76,000 jobs in coal in the US, renewable energy is a far greater employer. In the United States alone, the solar and wind industries employ a combined 360,000. As of 2017, less than a thousand people worked in the coal industry in the United Kingdom, and yet around 125,000 work in the renewable energy industries. It’s clear that right now, clean energy is a much more important employer than dirty coal. And these numbers aren’t set to decline; rather, most predictions suggest they will exponentially increase, particularly if countries stick to their given targets for renewable energies. The US Department of Energy wants to achieve 20% wind power by 2030. To get there, around 100,000 more turbines will be needed, which equates to roughly 500,000 more jobs. In 2019, resigning Prime Minister Theresa May set a target of zero emissions by 2030, another goal that will require substantial investment in sustainables. Climate change, as laid out by Senior Editor William Pearse in his piece on the destructive nature of the crisis, has the potential to destroy our economy in ways, and on scales, we are currently unable to fathom. Renewable energies are perhaps the most important answer to the question of how we reverse this trend and save not only our economies, but our entire world as we know it. The creation of jobs is an essential part of how renewables will do this. But that’s not all they’re going to do. Browse our job listings to find your perfect position Renewing the economy Traditionally, the use of fossil fuels has had a weighty financial advantage over renewables. In recent years, though, this has stopped being the case: solar and wind power especially have become financially competitive as suppliers of energy, and their increased usage across the world reflects this. Unfortunately, rather than becoming the replacement for unsustainable energy sources they were once hailed as, they have merely been used to supplement existing supplies as global demand continues to grow. Regardless, as renewables have become more and more competitive, they have become more widely used, and investment in them is exceptionally good for the economy. Aside from the aforementioned employment potential, an IRENA report from 2016 suggested that ‘doubling the share of renewables by 2030 could increase global GDP by 1.1% ($1.3 trillion)’. On top of this, renewable energy can stimulate trade, decrease the costs of fuel imports, inspire capital investment, and increase property tax revenue and lease payments to landlords. The most important of these – the investment opportunities – was roughly $100 billion from 2005-2015. In addition to these numbers are the more indirect, but just as important, effects that a switch to renewable energy, and a subsequent alleviation of the climate crisis, would entail. For example, if air quality was improved, the volume of people across the world who are hospitalised due to breathing conditions would decrease. There are perhaps 12,000 premature deaths due to climate change in the US alone every year, and many more suffer serious health problems which can hospitalise them. The strain on healthcare systems that climate change contributes to is massive; take London, where predictions suggest air pollution causes breathing problems in 4 new adults every day. Fixing these problems would free up funds for treatment and research into cures for the serious endemic health problems that plague society. The above arguments take for granted that GDP is the measure of the economic wellbeing of society, received wisdom that has endured through the ages. And yet some – ecological economists being the prime example – have tried to rebuff this and introduce their own measuring stick: GPI, or Genuine Progress Indicator. GPI includes things like income gaps, poverty levels, and rates of environmental damage to see how well the world economy is really doing. By this yardstick, economic worth per person peaked in 1978, and has been steadily decreasing ever since. Moreover, the ecology itself has a monetary worth. Ecological economists predicted in the late nineties that the environment was worth around $33 trillion, over twice the GDP of the world at the time. Although the figure holds little economic utility, the point of the exercise was to highlight the monetary worth of the environment, while simultaneously revealing GDP’s inadequacy as a measuring stick. Naturally this doesn’t take into account nature’s less tangible aspects, such as its often astounding beauty, or indeed, how essential it is to our survival. Unsustainable wealth inequality Climate change, as one may guess, disproportionately affects the poor. The scientific consensus that climate change intensifies weather conditions is well known, and the effects of this intensification have been seen in recent years. The Californian wildfires and other natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey were at least influenced by the rising temperature, if not directly caused by it. And the economic damage of these ‘acts of God’, as insurance companies so love to name them? In 2017 alone, environmental disasters in the United States cost a total of $306 billion. Naturally, the poor shoulder this burden. As more poorer people are forced to build their homes in at-risk areas and are affected by natural disasters, they are subsequently left high and dry by insurance companies who may not pay out for these types of events. The poor being penalised for a problem that affects them disproportionately is, of course, not only an American phenomenon. In 2019, the ultra low emission zone (Ulez) was extended to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week in central London. While on the face of it this policy is positive, reducing air pollution by taking cars off the road and forcing people to drive cleaner vehicles, it is, inevitably, the working-class who take the brunt of the cost. Those with vehicles over 3.5 tonnes have to now pay a whopping £100 a day on top of the congestion charge. White collar workers whose livelihoods depend on their being able to use their vans and lorries in central London have been put essentially out of work due to these new rules, and those who were told to change their vehicles to supposedly environmentally-friendly options in the past – such as during the diesel tax break of 2001, implemented before diesel became the enemy – have been hit the hardest. Many of those who will have to pay the charge, which could be up to £24 a day between 7am and 6pm, simply don’t have the money to pay for a newer vehicle that fits in with the latest Euro 6 engine standard from 2015. Planned for 2021 is to bring the Ulez into action in all areas inside the North and South Circular, affecting even more of those who cannot afford it. In fairness, in February 2019 a £21 million scrappage scheme to help small businesses upgrade their vehicles was launched; unfortunately, this isn’t enough to help those who are poor but don’t own their own business, like cleaners and care workers, for example. Writing in the Independent, Oliver Barnes argues that Ulez exposes the fact that ‘London remains an unequal and unforgiving place which lets the wealthiest get off scot-free, while pitting its poorest residents against one another.’ It’s hard to argue against this logic. Moving away from the West, the poorest are also hit by climate change in the less-well developed regions of the world. The spread of infectious diseases can be increased by changing environmental conditions as habits are destroyed, causing animals to move closer to human populations, and raising temperatures, which means malaria-spreading mosquitoes have a larger area to inhabit than before. The Zika outbreak of 2014-15, for example, was caused by subtropical mosquitos who thrived above-averagely warm temperatures across South America, arguably caused by climate change. These outbreaks not only mean massive strains on the healthcare systems of developing countries, but also that tourism, on which many of these states depend, is negatively affected. The economic effects of such outbreaks can be devastating for countries which are already struggling financially. Rising temperatures also affect crop growth, causing failures and droughts. For developing countries which depend on agriculture, the loss of a single yield can be catastrophic to the economy, not to mention the tragic loss of life this entails. A changing climate One thing’s for certain: combating climate change will lower the risk of natural disasters and the outbreak of diseases, which means that the poor will suffer less. At the moment, they shoulder most of the burden. To combat this disparity, rather than introducing relatively arbitrary low emission zones, larger, more fundamental changes need to be made on an international level that prevent things like, for example, corporations effecting huge deforestation and militaries devastating ecologies. Alongside these, protections need to be put into place that make sure those who can afford it foot the bill for what are going to be some hard lifestyle and societal changes. This could include something like a green tax on luxury items that are particularly bad for the environment, and the making of green products at affordable prices. Most important, however, will be massive investment in renewable energy. The jobs these industries will create should help ease some of the burden on the poor, particularly those currently in precarious employment; in the meantime, unfair taxes should be discarded. The only way to implement all of this is through a transnational, borderless approach to environmental protection. If the climate crisis is going to be solved, and if renewables are going to be pushed to the forefront of our energy solutions, countries will need to work together in order to conduct research into improving their efficiency and affordability. International legislation needs to be put in place that prevents the expansion of non-sustainable energy sources and encourages (or makes obligatory, even) investment in renewables. The infrastructure that is needed to construct a renewable world will require skill sets from workers across the world, making sustainable immigration an essential piece of this puzzle. Substantial investments need to come from both governments and private funds, and the monetary aspect will be more viable if countries work together to make the climate their utmost priority. Political differences, such as those between China and the United States, will have to be put aside, something easier said than done. Making the world renewable isn’t an easy task; at the same time, it’s by no means impossible. It requires international cooperation – and the making of some tough decisions – to force it to happen. We can only hope that by the time the leaders of this world have got their act together, it isn’t already too late.
In 2018, United States President Donald Trump said his administration was putting more coal miners back into work, having previously rattled on about how important coal jobs were to the future of the US. Perhaps it should be no surprise that his words were empty. The Trump administration has added a negligible 2,000 coal mining jobs since it took control, and whatever bump in coal production 2018 saw was quick to fade away. Obviously, Trump’s pledge to keep the industry alive was a political stunt, not a decision based on the economic realities of the moment; for if it had been, Trump wouldn’t have been talking about coal, but about renewable energy.
Economic Development, Innovation and Growth (JEL O)
The coup was prevented mainly due to a campaign of civil resistance led by newly elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin had been the first person in history to resign from the Politburo voluntarily a few years earlier in 1987, and this garnered him a reputation as a rebel and an anti-establishment figure. His involvement in stopping the August Putsch, as it became known, solidified his popularity in the Soviet Union. Although Gorbachev was restored to his previous position as General Secretary of the Communist Party, his power was vastly diminished, the event having destabilised the already-fragile political situation in the USSR. Yeltsin was hailed as a hero and remained President after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. After taking power, Yeltsin implemented a series of capitalist, post-Soviet reforms that privatised huge portions of Russia’s state-owned assets. Swept up in the rushing tide of selling were large portions of the industrial, energy, and financial sectors, marking the first time private ownership of property and enterprise had been legal since the Soviet Union’s creation in the early twentieth century. Massive privatisation in Russia caused two related effects. First, inequality rose sharply, coinciding with a GDP collapse and a decline in industrial output. Second, much of the diminishing wealth of Russian enterprises was concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy individuals – oligarchs – who became even richer, with company stocks of state-owned enterprises being transferred to criminal gangs and mob bosses. Predictably, those who suffered most were the regular citizens of Russia. Despite Yeltsin’s reputation as a charismatic rebel able to win over the hearts of the desperate Russian population, he wasn’t able to successfully run a market economy, and by 1999 his popularity had disintegrated to such an extent that he was forced to resign under intense internal pressure. Just how did it all go so wrong? Download the INOMICS Handbook! Economic catastrophe According to David Satter in The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin, the start date for Yeltsin’s reforms can be traced to January 2nd, 1992. On this day, Yegor Gaidar, Deputy Prime Minister, freed prices. His prediction, according to Satter, was that prices would increase between three and five times. But this isn’t what happened. Over the course of the next ten months, prices rose by a factor of nearly thirty. The results of this were that the money in regular people’s savings accounts, money that had in some cases been saved for decades, disappeared virtually overnight. Hyperinflation had the added effect of being a perfect environment for a criminal class to take control of the markets and earn huge amounts of money. Due to a shortage of turnover capital as a result of inflation, production was paralysed. The regime’s answer to this was to issue government credits at rates of 10 to 25%. Instead of being used to pay workers’ salaries, though, they were deposited at banks, and bank officials and factory directors split the profits. Some got themselves export licences through bribing government officials, bought raw materials in roubles and then sold them abroad at world prices, making huge amounts of money in the process. Others acquired import permits after the government, fearing famine, began selling them in 1991. Food products were imported at 1% their real value, the rest of the cost subsidised by Western commodity credits, and a small group of traders made enormous sums of money from it: in 1992, import subsidies amounted to 15% of GDP. A second scheme the government put in place was the distribution of vouchers, which were meant to represent ‘a citizen’s share of the national wealth’, valued at ten thousand roubles. Many Russians were uncertain what to do with these vouchers, and so sold them on the street for minuscule returns like a bottle of vodka or ten dollars. Some invested them in voucher funds, which turned out to be scams, or bought shares in their own factories. But organised crime groups realised they could use these vouchers to invest in industry. These groups, who collected thousands of vouchers over a few years, used them to secure around a third of the country’s industrial base, propelling themselves to unimaginable wealth. These measures, implemented apparently in good faith, led to the collapse of the Russian economy. Russia’s GDP fell by 50% between 1992 and 1998. This was worse than the decline faced by the United States during the Great Depression. In the same period, industrial production declined by 56%. (Some estimates say these figures are askew: lack of industrial investment and the stopping of production of non-consumed goods may have distorted this figure. For example, the military sector, which has less weight in a nominally ‘free’ market, experienced a sharp drop in production. Regardless, the number is high.) Since then, things haven’t got huge amounts better: although Russian GDP peaked in 2013 at $2 trillion, it was back down to $1.2 trillion again in 2016 due to a drop in oil prices and exchange rates. Crony capitalism and criminal gangs Russia remains in the top-third most corrupt countries in the world: as of 2018, 138th from 180. Corruption affects all aspects of Russian administration, and it has been argued that it ‘coincided with the illegal dispersal of the equivalent of billions of dollars from the Soviet state treasury into private accounts across Europe and the U.S.’ By 2011, the average bribe had increase to 236,000 roubles from just 9,000 in 2008, many times the inflation rate over the same three year period. Estimates of how much this corruption, judged by Russia’s famous ‘shadow economy’, cost the country in terms of GDP vary, from 3.5-7% as judged by the Russian government, to 48% as judged by the World Bank. That’s right: nearly half of Russia’s GDP is estimated by the World Bank to be caught up in the shadow economy. This economy, which functions through the bribing of government officials not only to vote the right way but simply to do their jobs in the first place, is made up of unreported salaries and astronomical rates of tax evasion. A recurring theme is that the Russian general population pays the biggest price of this corruption. Untenable rises in tariffs for housing, water, gas and electricity outpace the rate of inflation many times, and the main cause of these increases has been attributed to corruption among high-level officials. Public officials become richer and richer as a result. The money they make from these bribes obviously has to be laundered, and although an anti-money laundering initiative was put into place in 2013, it has been largely unsuccessful in preventing the practice. One of the main reforms under Gorbachev was the legalisation of cooperatives, which became the only privately owned businesses in the Soviet Union. These cooperatives were successful, but led to a different problem: the police would only protect state enterprises. This meant that criminal gangs formed across the country which offered ‘protection’ in exchange for money, perhaps better described as extortion. By the time Yeltsin implemented his reforms, almost everybody was paying off someone for protection. But the gangs quickly realised these smaller markets weren’t the most lucrative way to operate. Instead, they began targeting the newly-wealthy business owners and bankers, many ending up victims of contract killings by gang members who wanted to take over these recently-formed enterprises. This criminality led to problems not only domestically but also with foreign businessmen. Trying to invest in a Russian business often led to dealings with gangsters who demanded money for protection, and any attempt to appeal to the authorities revealed that the gangsters had contacts in the police and the government that went all the way to the top. Who takes the fall? Despite still essentially being in competition with the West in much the same vein as it was during the Cold War (at least according to analyses of Russia’s exceptionalism by esteemed historian Stephen Kotkin) Russia still lags behind on some major indicators of country development. Ranking low on labour rights, social spending and tax policy, Russia placed only fiftieth on an international scale of equality, behind all of its Western neighbours and falling short of other former Soviet States like Georgia. A European Parliament study of Russian equality confirmed these conclusions, finding that ‘nearly half of pre-tax national incomes goes to Russia’s top 10%’, and that among large countries it had the highest proportion of billionaires than any other. Further qualification was needed: ‘Given that these figures do not take account of the huge wealth (estimated at up to 75% of Russia’s GDP) hidden in offshore accounts, they probably understate inequality.’ (Emphasis mine.) Demographic results of the Russian economic disaster were no better. The life expectancy of men dropped by more than six years between 1990 and 1994. In 1998, it sat at fifty-seven, ‘the lowest in the industrial world’, according to Satter. Many in the West refused to believe the death rate in Russia in the 1990s: the population dropped by 750,000 per year across the decade. In 1998, when the Russian state defaulted on $40 billion worth of debt, currency exchanges were updating their conversion rates from roubles to dollars by the hour. Estimates suggest that living standards dropped by 40% during the 1998 crisis. The criminal mindset that pervaded life – criminality was everywhere, and it was no longer a surprise that society could only function through criminal means – meant that violence and death became much more common. Russians were much more likely to kill themselves or be murdered than in almost any other industrialised nation, and the main victims of this were regular people, a huge proportion of whom were already living in poverty. Many, unable to pay for their medical bills or for the bare essentials, simply gave up. Others were tricked into racketeering schemes which covered everything from religion to apartments, and plenty of these involved murdering those who became involved. To sedate the population, the Yeltsin government lifted all restrictions on the sale of alcohol, causing massive strain on a healthcare system that wasn’t receiving investment. Post-Soviet Russia may be improving on some fronts, but quality of life for the median Russian only really started getting better in the 2010s. A bleak future By the time Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999 in a period of relative economic growth, Yeltsin’s popularity ratings were astoundingly low. Putin was seem as something new, someone to counteract the squalor of the preceding decade. While the Russian economy has grown, the political system remains unstable and unfair, and though many are out of the poverty they were thrust into by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, more still feel dejected in a system which rewards criminality and violence. Between 2014 and 2017, the Russian rouble collapsed, leading to another financial crisis. A decline in confidence in the Russian economy as a result of the fall in the price of oil in 2014, as well as sanctions imposed on Russia due to its annexation of Crimea, led to many investors selling off their Russian assets. Although since 2017 the Russian economy has been rebounding somewhat, 35% of all financial assets are owned by the 110 richest Russians. Moscow truly is the billionaire capital of the world: its levels of inequality are almost unbelievable for a country with the sixth-largest economy in the world. One of the main results of the economic disaster of post-Soviet Russia is the government’s authoritarian – some would argue dictatorial – character. Yeltsin’s election during the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, although not totally free and fair, was the closest Russia has come to proper democracy in over a century. The 1996 elections were riddled with electoral problems, such as Yeltsin using government money to fund his campaign, as well as huge amounts of media bias due to the fact that his government owned two of the national television channels and funded most independent newspapers. Media bias has plagued all subsequent elections throughout the 2000s, and although Putin was banned from running for a third term in 2008, a day after Dmitry Medvedev became President Putin was made Prime Minister, power remaining in all but name in his hands. And, after the 2012 election, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said ‘There were serious problems from the very start of this election. The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain. This was not the case in Russia. There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt.’ Much of these problems stem from the economic crisis of the 90s. That being said, if Russia is going to sort itself out, the solution lies with more than just money: it needs to inculcate true democracy. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon due to the current leadership's insistence on holding on to power. Instead, the people will continue to suffer, and Russia will remain a country of corruption, criminality, and authoritarianism.
In the early hours of the 21st of August 1991, a putsch in the Soviet Union against Mikhail Gorbachev failed, leaving three men dead and the country in a state of shock. The coup had been staged by members of the Soviet government who had taken issue with Gorbachev’s liberalising, democratising reforms, which he had been slowly putting into place over the previous few years. Those who had planned the attack then fled, and were all taken into custody within three days.
The job market in the North has become much more competitive and much more appealing to talented professionals. It was once London, and only London, that would attract interest from the hottest industry talent - but those days are gone. More professionals are open to living and working outside of the vibrant capital. Now, they're opting for the bigger bustling cities in the North such as Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. So why is there a shift in attitudes? Browse our job listings for more opportunities Why professionals are looking north London has a lot to offer young workers, but the cost of living, overpriced accommodation and fast pace of the city can be avoided if workers look at northern cities instead. Young professionals can still enjoy city life at a fraction of the cost of living in London - in both money and time. Data suggests a first-time buyer will have to put down a deposit three times the national average, and this has been the main reason why job opportunities and competition for them is booming in the North. However, the job market in the North has not grown by demand alone: there are also many renowned and international companies looking for new staff in the North. This can be proven with a quick search for jobs in Manchester, or for jobs in the other northern powerhouse cities. Job applications: the facts and figures Research also backs up claims that the North has a healthy and prospering job market. One job search site has been digging around and analysing job opportunities and job applications made to companies in these northern cities. Its findings indicate that there really is a northern job boom. It found a number of cities had received significantly more job applications over the previous two-year period. These cities were Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds and the two major Scottish cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In fact, Glasgow had one of the biggest rises in application with a staggering 41% increase. This was followed by Edinburgh (36%), and Sheffield and Liverpool both with 14% rises. Do job advertisements match up? The good news for these applicants is that there was also an increase in job advertisements during the same period. It must be noted that an increase in job applications may well be the result of an increase in job advertisement,- as logic would suggest. However, the sharp rise in applications also suggests more than advertisements are pulling people to the north of the UK. The aforementioned northern cities receiving more job applications also offered more jobs as a collective, with an average increase in jobs of 17%. Edinburgh again was up there and increased the number of advertised jobs by a phenomenal 80%. The North West of England was also offering more jobs and Liverpool’s job listing rates over the same two years rose by 53%. What jobs are on offer? It is also worth noting the types of jobs being offered in the North and in Scotland. Of course, these areas boast a wealth of opportunities in different sectors, but the increase mostly occurred in transport, sales, customer service, and logistics. Not all of these roles were high paying, but the salary goes further in the North compared to southern English counties and Greater London. Not to forget that some of the biggest UK companies have been moving north too - and these companies do have lucrative salaries and employment packages. Channel 4 has set up in Leeds, Boohoo’s Manchester depot was expanded and HSBC moved part of its retail operations out of London and further north. In A Nutshell To sum up the findings of the latest research and the discussion here: - Northern cities have advertised more jobs in the last two years than before. Notable increases were seen in Edinburgh and Liverpool with rates of 80% and 53% respectively - Simultaneously, and somewhat expectedly, job applications in these cities and other cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow have also increased. The latter received 41% more applications over the last two-year period - The northern job market is healthy and booming, offering an affordable alternative to London
Brexit may have created a great deal of anxiety and business uncertainty, yet the UK is enjoying a golden period of employment. With more people in jobs and less out of work jobseekers, the UK is experiencing record employment levels not seen for decades. Some of this achievement is down to a job boom in the north of England and in the two biggest Scottish cities.
Urban, Rural and Transportation Economics (JEL R)
Fast forward to 2019, however, and a cocktail of increasingly unethical business practice, rank inequality, and precarious work have put paid to this reputation. Celebration has been replaced by suspicion, and where reverence was once felt there now exists resentment. It’s hardly surprising either: in a country where medical debt is approaching $81 billion, is it really possible to justify a $129.4 million salary like which was recently paid to Discovery Inc. CEO, David Zaslav? Free-market logic? Many rail against such incomes, branding them a symbol of all that’s wrong with the current economic and political systems. A smattering of others simply can’t make sense of them, the figures, somewhat perversely, too large to hold any value. And then there are the fundamentalist free-marketeers who wonder what all the fuss is about. While conceding that yes CEO pay may sound excessive, they defer to the authority of the market, in all its infallible glory, to explain that incomes are, in fact, exactly where it should be, and merely a reflection of CEOs’ worth. If a boss receives 300 times more pay than their average worker, it because their contribution adds 300 times more value to the company. And with that, typically, the conversation is over. Pushed for more detail, and they’ll likely bristle, accusing the questioner of engaging in unsavoury acts of envy and spite, which, by anyone’s standard is not a good look. ‘Work harder’ the more sassy among them sometimes like to part with, ‘maybe one day you can make it too’. But is this explanation really good enough? And are these ‘market-designated’ earnings actually fair? Suggestion that a CEO contributes 300 times more value to a company than a worker does sound, on first hearing at least, rather outlandish; they remain a human being after all. Is any one individual really that valuable? On investigation, and using the same free-market logic defenders of CEO pay rely on, the answer looks like a resounding no. In fact, three key reasons emerge - discussed below - that reveal exec pay to be far from natural and point instead to it being profligate, unjust, and sometimes even corrupt. The great divergence American CEOs today earn approximately 10 times more than their predecessors of the 1960s and 70s, despite overseeing companies that are, in relative terms, far less successful. During this time, the ratio of CEO compensation to the average worker has also majorly distorted. In the 60/70s, it lay somewhere in the region of 30-40 to 1 - already excessive in some people’s eyes. By the 2000s, owing to rapid rise in the 80s, it had reached a whopping 300-400. Worker wages, on the other hand, were estimated by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to have grown just 13% between 1973-2006. 13% in 33 years: that is less than half a percent per year; essentially, that is stagnancy. Provided with these statistics, a free-market enthusiast’s only available conclusion would be that CEOs became ten times more productive in a period in which workers’ productivity remained almost exactly the same. Give that a second; let that supposition sink in. A common justification for this steep rise is that as companies have got bigger in size, the importance of the CEO has grown commensurably: shrewd decisions made by the CEO of a billion dollar company, the argument goes, could easily increase company earnings by a few million. Also, to ensure the best candidate is secured, top dollar must be paid, lest they be poached by a rival company. With this in mind, surely it makes sense that these factors are reflected in the size of the pay packet? Well, no, not exactly. Although, there may be some small kernel of truth to the growing importance of the CEO, it doesn't account for the magnitude or manner of wage increase that we’ve seen. For one, it overlooks the fact that wages increased most rapidly in the 80s, even though company size had been growing for some time before. And more importantly, it doesn’t explain why, as bosses lined their pockets, workers’ pay flatlined. By the argument’s own logic, workers, too, should have experienced significant wage increase, as, owing to the complex cooperation and divisions of labour customary in large institutions, they also assume greater importance as a company grows. How else can you explain HR departments? America the anomaly Observations made by Cambridge Professor, Ha-joon Chang, further undermine these justifications. He posits: if ‘the increasing importance of top managerial decisions is the main reason for CEO salary inflation why are CEOs in Japan and Europe running similarly large companies paid only a fraction of what American CEOs are paid?’ Are Americans bringing something priceless to the party simply by virtue of being American? The EPI, again, provide reliable statistics on the matter, showing that in the 2000s German CEOs were paid 55% of what their American counterparts received, the Dutch just 40%, and the Japanes an almost unbelievably low 25%. Notably these figures do not include stock options granted to CEOs, which, in the US, are typically much higher. Chang has estimated that when stock options are included, Japanese CEOs’ compensation totals just to 5% of their US counterparts. More recent data compiled by Harvard’s Forum of Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation has shown that US CEO pay has continued to increase into the 2010s, whereas in Europe pay has been far more volatile, and across the region as a whole has fallen each year since 2015. It’s not that American CEOs are running their companies any better, either. To the contrary, Chang highlights that in many cases they are actually being outperformed by their European and Japanese equivalents. He also discounts American CEOs enjoying better wages because wages, generally, are higher in America, for outside of highly skilled employment, it simply isn't true - wages are, in fact, rather similar. Japanese workers make around 90% of Americans, while in comparison with German workers, Americans actually receive less. Insulated from market forces Their legitimacy aside, there is the question of whether we should even care. If a company are silly enough to pay their CEO fiendish amounts, let them. Thriftier outfits with more sensible compensation packages will eventually outperform, and then eliminate them - market forces will see to it. Unfortunately, history has shown this function cannot be relied on, for two main reasons. First, the process of eliminating excessive CEO pay is incredibly slow: one need only remember the decades prior to General Motors’ bankruptcy, during which top managers continued to receive huge salaries and bonuses even as the business was collapsing - nothing done to check the blatant injustice. The second reason, which partially accounts for the first, is the power the managerial class have acquired, both within their own companies, thanks to their pay, and politically, also thanks to their pay. This phenomenon is particularly acute in the US, where the line between business and politics is so blurry it’s practically invisible - the revolving door connecting Washington and Wall Street now an accepted reality. So close are ties, many private CEOs actually end up heading government departments, and lobbying influence, often funded by those very same CEOs, has never been greater. Wielding such enormous power has allowed them, rather easily it should be said, to insulate their pay from both market forces and governmental regulation. The result: the average salary of a US CEO is $15.6 million, The aftermath of the financial crisis was the clearest demonstration of this in action. Despite known criminal behaviour and major malpractice among the managerial ranks, few of those implicated lost their jobs, even less took a pay cut, and there was high-profile resistance (which ultimately was successful) against attempts made by the US congress to cap the pay of managers of financial firms. Rarely, if ever, has there been such a public display of how unfair the system really is - it’s supposed to punish inefficiency and mismanagement. Instead, it rewarded them, and in doing so, confirmed what the above also argues: that exec pay isn't natural or deserved, and its existence alone is not evidence of its legitimacy. Rather, it’s the result of greed, a lack of regulation, and foul play. It must be changed.
Rising year on year, seemingly irrespective of company performance, US executive pay is eye-watering. For decades now, its increase - the small blip following the financial crisis aside - has been rapid. As their wallets have bulged, however, CEOs’ standing in the public eye, has fallen precipitously - plotted on a graph the relationship between the two would make a big X. And this is a significant shift. It wasn't long ago that the American entrepreneur was heralded as an almost mythical figure: the embodiment of all that was good about the country; the opportunity it afforded; the work ethic it rewarded; the fact that with the right attitude anything was possible. They were the American Dream in action; evidence that it could be made real.
Studying economics or business at Rotterdam Business School
Within Rotterdam is a well regarded business school, the Rotterdam Business School, which is a part of the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (RUAS). The business school offers bachelor's and master's degree programs as well as summer schools for training specific skills. Research specialities at Rotterdam Business School The Rotterdam Business School teaches and conducts all of its business in English, so it has a highly international outlook. As well as programs of study, there are many foreign exchange programs, so you can expect to meet people from all different countries and backgrounds there. There are students from over 50 countries at the school, and it has educational links to Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. The focus is on real-life business skills rather than academic research, so the school teaches real business examples in its courses and partners with local and international businesses to teach the skills which are most available for starting out in businesses. There is also off-campus teaching as well as on-campus teaching, in which students are taken out into real business environments to learn directly rather than spending all of their time in the classroom. The aim is to get students out of university and into the workforce as smoothly as possible, whether the students are starting their own business, working for a small business, or joining a large multinational company. This very practical, hands-on approach may be appealing to those who like to do as well as to think, and who want opportunities to build networks and contacts in business while they are still studying. Programs at Rotterdam Business School There is just one bachelor program available, in International Business, which includes the study of languages like French, German, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, Russian or Dutch as well as business knowledge. That makes it ideal for students who want to travel the world or who are interested in practising their business skills outside of the English-speaking world. The Business School has more of a focus on masters studies, with programs including masters degrees in Consultancy and Entrepreneurship, Finance and Accounting, or International Supply Chain Management. These courses tend toward being practical skills-based rather than more abstract, so they're great for those who want to start their own business or just into running a business as quickly as possible. ➲ Subscribe to find your ideal Master's program in Europe “I like the fact that in my university we have a combination of practice and theory,” a current student at the business school explained. “This combination helps me remember what I need to academically as well as instilling passion in what I am doing. Another advantage of my university is that it offers elective subjects that you can take, many electives are languages but for example, I took Neuro Linguistic Programming and I think it is cool that you can choose by your own extra subjects that can be added to your curriculum.” Tuition fees at Rotterdam Business School Tuition fees in the Netherlands are less expensive than in the U.S., but still represent a significant chunk of money. For a bachelor's program, EU students pay an affordable €2,143 per year, but non-EU students must pay a higher €9,620. These prices are comparable to or cheaper than many universities in Europe. The masters programs, however, are steeply priced. They typically cost around €11,750 for a one-year course, for both EU and non-EU students. There are some discounts available, such as a discount for those who are alumni of RUAS, or a discount to EU student rates for non-EU refugee students. Accommodation in Rotterdam One of the downsides of living in a popular city like Rotterdam is that accommodation can by extremely hard to come by. The apartments available are not cheap and are often small, and when trying to secure an apartment you may well be viewing a place alongside many other people. This can be a problem for those who are studying as many landlords would rather rent their apartments to people with full-time jobs rather than students. You can expect to pay a massive €1150 per month for a one bedroom apartment in the center of the city, so most students opt to share accommodations instead. Even so, a room in a three bedroom apartment in the city center may cost you around €650 per month. You could get lucky and find something for around €450 for a room in a shared apartment which is further out of the city center, but these rooms are often hard to find. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences does have some accommodation available for its students, but not many places. It offers around 220 rooms per year through its Foundation for Student Housing, but not everyone is eligible for this housing. The university is aware of the difficulties that accommodation can present to students though, so it offers services like short stay accommodation for when you first arrive and help and advice on how to find accommodation from other housing providers. An inside student tip is to start looking for accommodation as early as possible if you want to study in Rotterdam, as desirable housing gets snapped up quickly. Cost of living and going out in Rotterdam The good news for students is that, unlike the cost of accommodation, other costs of living in the city are relatively low. You can get a great meal for well under €20, and you can expect to pay around €4 for a beer at a bar. The public transportation around the city is excellent, and with a ticket costing under €80 per month you can travel all over the city for not too much money. The city is also very walkable, and of course, being located in the Netherlands, many people ride bicycles. With plenty of bike paths and many other cyclists on the roads, it feels much safer and more enjoyable to cycle around Rotterdam than it does to cycle around comparable large cities in the U.S. There is a European cafe culture, with many people spending time getting coffee and sitting outside to walk the world go by. There are similarly many bars and places to go out, and a budding art and music scene influenced by the industrial vibe of the city. The architecture is one of the most striking things about the city. As a busy port, it sits on the water and has a strong industrial feel. Much of its development has been fairly recent so the building have a very modern look, which is not for everyone but which is exciting and unique. ➲ Discover all study programs in the Netherlands
Rotterdam is a funky, modern city in the southern part of the Netherlands, taking less than an hour to travel to by train from the capital Amsterdam. Although Amsterdam might be the more famous tourist destination to those outside of Europe, Rotterdam has an edgy, exciting quality which makes it a highly desirable location for people to study.<o:p></o:p>
Conference Scholarships to Fund Your Conference Trip
Check out our conference listings 1. Royal Economic Society Conference Grant Scheme Also aimed at economists is the RES conference grant, which is open to members who are presenting an economics paper or giving a talk at a conference. This funding available is up to £500 and applications for awards are accepted three times a year, in January, May, and September. Applicants will have to submit a summary of the impact the funding had on their trip and receipts detailing their expenditure. 2. International Atlantic Economic Society Scholarships Conference grants are available for economists living in Turkey, Eastern Europe, and Africa through the IAES to attend their yearly conference which is held in Europe. Awards of $250 to $350 are available, and recipients are invited to present a paper at the conference. 3. World History Association World Scholar Travel Fund Another organisation which offers a scholarship to cover the cost of attendance at its conference is the WHA, which gives funding primarily to academics from outside of North America to cover travel and other costs. In addition to this, they offer conference registration fee waivers for those who are in economic need. There's also a teacher scholarship which can fund a K-12 or community college teacher who is presenting a paper. 4. International Association for Energy Economics Student Scholarships Students in the field of energy economics who are from developing countries can apply for a scholarship from the IAEE to attend their conference. The scholarship covers travel and accommodation costs of up to $1750 as well as the cost of the conference registration fee. 5. American Political Science Association Travel Grants Those in political science who are US graduate students, international students in the US, international scholars, or unemployed members can apply for a APSA travel grant to attend the organisation's two yearly conferences. They also offer scholarships for Latino/a students and other minority groups. You have to live more than thirty miles from the conference location and of course be a member of APSA for at least through the date of the conference you'll be receiving funds for. 6. DAAD Scholarships in Germany German science researchers or international researchers who are working in Germany may apply for a scholarship from the DAAD to cover the costs of attending an international conference at which they are presenting a poster or giving a talk. The scholarships are available on a rolling basis, but the application form is in German so knowledge of the language is required. 7. Government Finance Officers Association Scholarships Professionals from the United States or Canada who work in government finance can apply for a number of scholarships including a minorities in government finance scholarship from the GFOA which cover travel to their annual conference along with accommodation and registration costs. You'll have to have plans to pursue a career in state, provincial, or local government finance, as well as not have received a scholarship before. Each scholarship also has its own requirements.
If you've got a conference coming up that you want to attend, you'll know that there are lots of costs associated with a trip. You'll need to pay for travel and accommodation as well as the cost of conference attendance, which can all add up to a large amount of cash. Often, your department will pay for conference trips, but what if you run out of travel budget, or you don't have this option? In that case, you might want to consider applying for a conference scholarship. These are awards of money given to fund travel and attendance at a conference, usually for students or early career researchers. Often these scholarships will require that you're actually presenting at a conference, but not always - some have different criteria, such as where you are a resident and whether or not you're a student. In any case, there are large databases available to find scholarships for conference; here is a short list to get you started.
The global credit crunch of 2007-2008 has had significant implications for the lives of many people around the world. This short course aims to provide students with an understanding of conventional macroeconomic thinking so that they can understand the essential principles of how the macroeconomy of nation states functions in a globalised world. Once students have completed this course they will be better placed to understand the causes of inflation and unemployment and the relevance of government monetary and fiscal policy in dealing with such economic problems. Therefore, students will be able to use the knowledge gained to understand everyday macroeconomic events. Furthermore, students will have a solid foundation upon which they can progress to higher level studies in Macroeconomics as well as being able to apply the knowledge gained to other online courses such as ‘Globalisation'and the ‘New Economic Powers’. For information on how the courses work, and a link to our course demonstration site, please click here. Recommended reading To participate in this course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following book: Goodwin, N., Nelson, J.A., and Harris, J., Macroeconomics in Context 2nd edition (M.E. Sharpe, 2014) Certification To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee. For more information on CATS point please click on the link below: http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/studentsupport/faq/cats.php Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee. Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail. All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting both course assignments and actively participating in the course forums. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.
his course provides a detailed introduction to, and encompasses the fundamentals of macroeconomics. On completion of the course you will have the ability to critically assess real-world macroeconomic developments at first-year undergraduate level. Moreover, students will be able to better understand the material in other online economics courses such as the ‘New Economic Powers'and ‘Globalisation’.
Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics (JEL E)
Plan B: What to do if your PhD Application is Rejected
Assess whether the department was the right fit for you Sometimes, a rejected application can actually be a blessing in disguise. If your research interests do not align well with the interests of the department to which you applied, then it would be difficult for you to bond with the department and to get the support that you need in your PhD. Some departments or institutions have more broad interests than others, but usually the more specifically focused a department is, the easier it will be for you to study that topic there. So take some time to think seriously about whether your proposed project was a good fit for where you were applying. If not, try to find departments that do research which is more closely aligned to what you want to do. Also consider your own profile – it will be easier for you to be accepted onto a program where you have an academic background in common with other researchers there. Maybe you can find a different department to apply to which is more closely suited to your project. Get more experience Some applications will be rejected even though the project proposal has potential, because the applicant does not convince the assessors that they can perform the work. You are not expected to have a complete understanding of how to perform a research project when you apply – after all, the purpose of the PhD is to teach you these skills – but you do need to show that you have some level of experience. This is especially true if you are changing fields between your masters and your PhD. If you want to move from, say, history to economics, then you would be expected to have some experience with statistics, mathematics, or modelling, for example. If you don't have this experience, you can try to get a job as a research assistant or research worker to help you build up your skills and demonstrate that you can perform the kind of work that you want to do. <11an>limit:3;categories:PhD Programs;disciplines:Economics</11an> Reapply next year If you've considered all of the above, and decided that the program which you applied to is still definitely the place at which you want to do you PhD, then you can always apply again next year. While it might be helpful to gain more research experience or to perform some new work, often the best way that you can improve your chances of being admitted to a PhD program is by improving your application. Look again at your research proposal and letter of motivation. Make sure that your proposal is realistic and achievable in the typical three year period. Don't just tell people that you have skills in your motivation letter – rather, show that you have the skills by talking about what you have achieved with them in the past. You can also try to contact people at the department you wish to join and ask them for feedback on your application. This can be a hit-or-miss technique, as many academics are very busy and may not have time to help applicants. This is especially true of departments which receive large numbers of applications, so be prepared that you may not receive an answer, and don't be pushy. However, you may find that someone is willing to help you and suggest improvements to your application. It can sometimes help to talk to the admin staff handling applications as well as the academics, as they may be able to give you additional guidance. Browse our PhD listings to find your next opportunity
If you've applied to do a PhD but have been unsuccessful, don't despair! Although having an application rejected can be disheartening, it isn't unusual, and it can often take people a couple of tries until they get accepted onto a course. Here are a few tips on what to do if your PhD application is rejected. If you plan to improve your PhD application this autumn, download our free guide "How to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics"
Tips For Students: How To Find A Part-Time/Student Job To Finance Your Studies
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as there are numerous advantages that come with being employed on a part-time basis whilst studying. The benefits are first and foremost financial - the extra cash can prove invaluable - but there are also additional benefits, such as valuable time management skills - having less free time requires students to organise and manage their time more precisely in order to meet academic deadlines - as well as providing a productive escape from essay writing. Furthermore, in the most ideal scenario your part-time job can serve as an introduction (first step) to a possible future career, and at the very least this will provide a positive experience for future employers to appraise. Concerning employment after graduation, you never want to be in an interview fresh out of university and say that you do not have any previous professional experience. And last but not least, it can be argued that students who have part-time jobs and who are not solely dependent on their parents, scholarships or other sources of funding tend to spend their own money more wisely. Having established the undeniable advantages of getting a student job, here comes the hard part, how do you get one given the scores of students who are in the same boat? Well, here are 6 crucial tips: 1. Use the structures and tools at your disposal. In that regard, your first stop should be the university’s Jobshop or Career Services Office. Almost all universities possess one, and at the very least they will be able to point you in the right direction. 2. Universities draw upon their own students to fill a variety of jobs within their own institution. There will most likely be a regular newsletter or mailing list keeping students informed of the latest vacancies. Never forget, the early bird catches the worm. 3. Remember that you are not the first university student to be seeking employment, so find out how your fellow students have solved the problem. Word of mouth is an invaluable resource in that respect. This is especially true since many jobs are not announced publicly - instead these may be filled through unofficial channels. 4. It could be argued that in our digital world, the only thing more effective and efficient than word of mouth with regards to the circulation of information is social media. So get online and check the various forums for current vacancies. 5. If you are more traditional and not comfortable with new technologies, then you can always arm yourself with your printed CV’s and go door-to-door to local shops, restaurants, bars and pubs. Make sure that you look professional and make a good first impression. Remember that you are neither alone nor the first university student to walk through their door seeking employment, so make sure that you set yourself apart from the crowd. 6. When it comes to finding a student job to finance your studies, remember that the most crucial factor is your own initiative. Although there will no doubt be a support system at your university, this is merely a resource and others cannot plan and attend a job interview on your behalf whilst you sit at home and wait. So be proactive. The only students who don't have a part-time job are the ones who don’t need one or are not looking hard enough.
Given the highly competitive nature of funding opportunities and the ever-increasing cost of higher education, a part-time job is seemingly an unavoidable part of the student experience. Whether it be to earn some more money to put towards tuition fees, or the cost of living expenses or even having a little aside for entertainment and leisure activities, students find themselves increasingly obliged to find a part-time job whilst at university.
How to Write a Cover Letter: Five Steps to Success
In this post, we’ll break down how to write a successful cover letter into five basic components. This information can be applied to any type of cover letter, though it is most closely aligned with a cover letter for a job application. We've also included some examples at the end to help you generate ideas for your cover letter. If you're interested in economics resumes or academic cover letter samples as well, be sure to check out the linked articles. Browse our job listings for economics opportunities 1. Start with a great introduction Rather than restating your name and the title of the job to which you are applying, begin with a strong sentence about what makes the position right for you. Skipping the unnecessary repetition of information and jumping right into your letter makes you look more professional while also emphasising your interest. If you have any personal connections to the institution or organization, mention that in the first few lines. Such connections can set you apart from other applicants, so don’t be afraid to point them out. If you don’t have any connections, use the full first paragraph to express your interest in the position and briefly mention why you are a good fit for the job. 2. Highlight your unique qualifications In the body of your letter, you should include one to two paragraphs describing details about your academic and professional background. This should incorporate information that cannot explicitly be found in your CV, including strengths, interests and achievements that are relevant to the job to which you are applying. Don't be afraid to cite specific accomplishments, as specific details are far more impressive and memorable than bland lists of qualifications. 3. Show you’ve done your research Prior to sitting down to write a cover letter, spend some time looking at the website of your prospective employer. Read about current events, research or other work being done in the area to which you are applying. If there are publications available, take a look at those, noting any points of particular interest. You should not simply reiterate what you’ve learned about the organization, but instead underscore why and your background and qualifications fit with the work they do. By referencing the current work of the organization to which you are applying in connection to your own qualifications, you create a clear link for the hiring team and can set yourself apart from other applicants. 4. Be brief and concise While your cover letter should be packed with useful and interesting information, it should also be short and to the point. As a rule, a cover letter should only be one page long, unless your prospective employer has stated otherwise. In order to keep your letter brief but powerful, read through each paragraph individually and make sure every sentence tells the reader something important. Any superfluous sentences or paragraphs should be removed, as they will only distract the hiring team from what’s important. 5. End with a strong conclusion The final paragraph is just as important as the opening paragraph, as these are what stick in the minds of the person reading your letter. You should reiterate what you said in the opening paragraph while incorporating elements of points you raised in the body of your letter as well. In your conclusion, it is important to demonstrate that you understand what the organization needs and show them that you are the person who can offer it. Be clear but not generic and enthusiastic but not overly flattering – in short, make yourself memorable without going overboard. In addition to each of these components, there are some simple stylistic elements to remember. Choose the right font for your resume to make a great first impression. Second, never send a cover letter in Word form – instead always convert it to a PDF. You could even think about using a cover letter template to really make your letter stand out. Third, for the convenience of the reader, it is a good idea to combine your CV, cover letter and any other application documents into one PDF, with your cover letter on top. Where to include references is also something to consider. Finally, it’s always a good idea to have someone else read through your cover letter before you send it off, as outside feedback can help you edit it down until it’s just right. And now for some examples... Thank you to Novoresume.com for allowing us to reproduce some of their excellent cover letter examples here. You can find more cover letter examples on their website. If you're looking for examples of sample motivation letters for PhD applications check out our guide. Cover letter example for students and graduates Cover letter example for middle management positions Cover letter example for management positions
Whether you’re still a student, a recent graduate, or already years into your career, mastering the art of cover letter writing is useful at every level. In one form or another, cover letters are a required component of applications to jobs, study programs, conferences, scholarships and many other important opportunities along your career path.
Does Economics Have a Problem with Women?
In any field, such inequity would be troubling, but because of the role economics plays in our society—how much it informs public policy—the problem it poses is especially disturbing. While in power, mostly male politicians refer to mostly male economists to legitimise their policy programmes; male priorities derived from male experience are, in effect, trumping their female counterparts. This collaboration serves to imbue patriarchy into the legislation that structures our daily lives, hindering the achievement of gender equality. Browse our job listings for economics opportunities To some, this may sound over the top, far-fetched even—but it isn’t. In fact, it’s borne out in the data. A recent a survey of members of the American Economic Association (AEA) revealed the extent to which male and female economists diverge in some fundamental areas. Perhaps most alarming is the split on the gender pay gap: only 14% of women said the gap was explained by differing educational qualifications and occupational choices, compared to 54% of men. Given men are advantaged by the gap it is awfully convenient for them to believe ‘superior’ education and ‘wiser’ decision-making accounts for it. In practice, such a discrepancy means the voices that need to be heard to fight the injustice are less audible, sometimes even ignored, and consequently the pay gap endures. For men, the issue remains a concern, but evidently nowhere near a priority—and unfortunately, they set the agenda. Worryingly, divergence in opinion extends to other major policy areas too. Women, for example, are more likely to support greater wealth distribution, larger government size, and a higher minimum wage—initiatives generally considered to be especially beneficial for women. And therein lies the inhibiting pattern that pervades the discipline. Simply put, academics research areas in which they are already familiar and/or have personal connection/stand to gain from. The underrepresentation of women, therefore, inherently limits the variety of questions economists look at (a short-coming that applies, even more strikingly, to people of colour) and allows white male opinion to remain the governing opinion. This lack of diversity is unquestionably constraining the field’s intellectual development and stymieing its ability to bring about transformative change. How bad is the situation? The gender imbalance in economics begins with education and is then traceable at every stage of the economist’s career development—a phenomenon former chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellin calls the ‘the leaky pipeline’. While ascending the career ladder, women are met with ever-thicker glass ceilings, halting progress and in some cases, encouraging the abandonment of the profession altogether—the more senior the economist, the less likely it is a woman. Economist and New York Times contributor, Justin Wolfers, has looked into the number of women majoring in economics at undergraduate level, and found that the proportion, having ‘peaked in the mid-to-late 1990s’, now stands at a paltry 35%, the same amount as in the early 1980s. This, too, is against a broader backdrop of women excelling across academia, comfortably earning the majority of completed undergraduate degrees. Adhering to the pipeline logic, these numbers further dwindle at doctorate stage. In another study by the AEA, it was shown that at many of the top US universities less than one fifth of incoming economics doctoral students were women, with the share then completing their PhDs also falling. Enter the world of work and things get no better. A sobering illustration of the vocational restrictions women face can again be seen looking at universities. As noted by economist Heather Sarsons, ‘female economists are twice as likely to be denied tenure as the male colleagues’, and of the women who make it, only 29% then proceed to make full professorship after seven years. For men, this figure is almost double, standing at 56%. Donna Ginther, professor at the University of Kansas, has found that these occupational realities greatly inhibit female job satisfaction, their happiness in the workplace lagging far behind that experienced by men. Why is economics such a bad egg? The obvious next question is why? Why is economics failing to improve gender diversity when other male-dominated fields are making progress? Lack of female ability can be immediately dismissed, and not just for its flagrant misogyny. There is much evidence that actually points to women matching, and in numerous cases, outperforming men while still in the ‘pipeline’. In both the UK and US, for instance, women average better grades at undergraduate level, and while working are equally as prolific with regard to publication output. Instead, analysis—like for example that conducted by Amanda Bayer and Cecilia Rouse—suggests that a bias, both implicit and institutional, is the ‘more likely culprit’. Analysis in this area is growing, and has already uncovered a host of systematic barriers that women face. The list is dauntingly long. As reported by The Economist's Data Team in 2018, investigation has shown that female economists are being held to a higher standard than their male counterparts, particularly when it comes to publishing. The demands made of their research are more rigorous: women experience an increased likelihood of requested rewrites, while the criticism levelled at their work is also much harsher. Together, these factors conspire to make publication a more time-consuming and onerous task. To add insult to injury, when work is co-authored with a man, research shows the female contributor receives significantly less peer credit than the male. Sarsons exposed the ubiquitous nature of this bias in a lengthy study based on publication data from the last 40 years. While acknowledging the ‘publish or perish’ culture that pervades academia and that much economic research is collaborative, Sarsons shows that the consequences of this bias severely damage women’s chances of tenure. The gendered division of labour within economics helps to compound the above problems. As explained by Emmanuelle Auriol, once qualified, the focus of male and female economists tends to diverge along certain lines, women gravitating towards more people-oriented sub-fields like ‘labour, health and education’, while men are drawn to macroeconomics. She continues, asserting that editors and publishers—who predictably are mostly men—are often less accustomed to the sub-fields that women are more likely to represent, this relative ignorance reducing the chances of their publication. This lack of visibility, in turn, denies the sub-fields a certain level of respectability, tarnishing their academic prestige and potential utility. Going forward The marketplace of ideas has long been presumed an effective sieve, siphoning the good ideas from the bad, ensuring that quality research rises, like cream, to the top, making itself available for public use. By this logic the current state of publication would suggest that men are simply having better ideas. Instead, the problem is that the sieve is not working the way it should, and perhaps never has. It functions, rather, as a self-reinforcing, self-serving device that has only been effective in insulating the discipline from change, risking it becoming anachronistic. For it to consider itself a true meritocracy the culture of economics needs upheaval—a process that should begin with its own investigative nous being turned in-house. Candid discussion of implicit biases must take place; high female dropout rates need thorough investigation; and clear descriptions of female contribution to co-authored pieces have to be guaranteed. Of course, these are mere starting points, the first repairs to an incredibly porous pipeline. Most important of all is that the work towards this renovation starts now.
Economics has a gender problem, it always has, and unfortunately, it appears to be getting worse. Until recently, the impression was that this historically male-dominated discipline was turning a corner—albeit rather slowly—and the number of women studying economics was creeping upwards. That progress, however, looks to have stalled, and by some accounts, including that of the Australian Department of Education, actually gone into reverse. All the while, the number of women in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths)—long notorious for their poor gender ratios—has been steadily increasing. It looks as though the ‘old boys’ club’ of economics might be closing ranks.
Browse our job listings for more opportunities Compared to previous generations they live longer with their parents; earn less money, while working longer hours; are more stressed; and reportedly, have less sex. To compound this, they know it needn’t be this way, that their reality – sex put to one side – is a political choice that theoretically could be changed. With this in mind, it’s little surprise that the annual Deloitte Global Millenial Survey paints a picture of a demographic consumed by disillusionment and mistrust – bestowing Millennials the moniker the ‘disrupted generation’. Comprised of the views of over 13,000 Millennials from 42 countries and territories, the aim of the survey is to gauge the general Millennial mood, glean their opinions on the present, and judge their expectations of the future. The following is a brief summary of some of the larger takeaways. A lack of trust Faced with continuous technological and societal dislocation, Millennials are experiencing what was described as a growing sense of ‘uneasiness and pessimism’: the feeling that something isn’t right, that the cards they were dealt weren’t fairly distributed. Much of this found articulation in their general disregard and mistrust of traditional institutions, particularly politicians and religious leaders, neither of whom – in the view of the majority – are making a positive impact on the world. In addition to being thought of as inept, they’re also viewed as dishonest, almost half of the respondents having zero faith in either set of leaders as ‘sources of reliable information’. Trust, in fact, seems to be a diminishing commodity, falling elsewhere too. Over a quarter of respondents reported having no trust in conventional media as a source of accurate information. Indeed, it barely outranked social media platforms as a dependable means of accessing news, raising the question: who exactly do Millennials trust to disseminate facts? The internet offers something of an answer, having borne witness to a huge proliferation of alternative media. And yet, it still leaves much unclear. What can be said is that the declining faith in traditional pillars of trust, and the absence, as of yet, of an institution or group filling this void, is further fuelling the generational sense of uncertainty. Facts are an orienting force, foundations through which the world can be framed. Their lack, therefore, perceived or otherwise, is a thoroughly disconcerting influence. Falling trust, falling optimism Businesses have not escaped Millennial ire either, and are held in marginally higher esteem than their political and religious counterparts. Just 55% believed businesses were making a positive impact, after four consecutive years in which the figure hovered in the 70s. These results were driven by the growing sense that businesses operate in their own interest with little regard for society at large. Given the steady stream of scandal – the recklessness, for instance, that prompted the recession – environmental devastation – in which big business is routinely implicated – and everyday worker exploitation, it’s hardly surprising. Businesses, generally, were thought out of step with Millennials’ priorities, neglecting both their societal and environmental responsibilities. This misalignment has made them the focus of much scorn. Declining trust has, perhaps predictably, developed in parallel with a decline in optimism. While there is an acceptance that the economic situation in which they live is not a good one, Millennials have little expectation that things will improve in the foreseeable future – only 26% were expecting improvement in their countries in the next 12 months. From a personal perspective, over half were convinced that their own financial situation would either remain the same or worsen in the same time period. With ample time to have fixed, or at least better repaired, the damage wrought by the recession, what Deloitte has called pervasive 'pessimism,' could easily be called pragmatism. Industry 4.0 The forces of Industry 4.0 – visible now in the majority of workplaces – are expected to ramp up the disruption of the already disrupted careers of Millennials. Since their entry into it, the job market has been in constant fluctuation, and change, which has become its defining characteristic, is set only to increase. For some jobs, this has meant the assimilation of new tech, while for others it has meant full automation. With a convergent scientific community predicting that this trend will transform economies over and over, it was surprising that a quarter of Millennials thought the forces of industry 4.0 would have no bearing on their jobs at all. Equally strange was that just 49% thought new technologies would only ‘augment’ their jobs. These responses reflected an uncharacteristic optimism, or possible naiveté, that could have great consequences if they translate into political choice. Governments must ready their populations for automation and there is little indication that incumbents are up to the task. When choosing their successors, Millennials will have the decisive vote. The disrupted disrupt While Millennials have been the subject of much disruption, some disturbances have also been of their own making. Their behaviour, both passively – in delaying large purchases and having fewer children – and actively – their preparedness, for instance, to quit their current jobs – has, and is, profoundly affecting society and business. For example, Millennials expressed loyalty to companies that ‘deliver best on financial performance, community impact, talent development, and diversity and inclusion’. When these criteria are left unfulfilled, they indicated they would likely end their relationship with said company. Further disrupting business is their willingness to engage in freelance and contractual work, which many explained as paying better and affording greater flexibility. The ethical stance taken with regard to work is mirrored in how Millennials consume, the younger generations speaking with their wallets, rewarding companies they believe most respect their values. Again, making a positive impact on society was high on their list of priorities. This is forcing a profit-driven and, at times, callous business community to reassess the way it works, a response that has been slow but is underway. It also poses a serious challenge to companies that desire a stable workforce, as most do, for if left unimpressed Millennials will walk. Going forward Entering the job market as the recession unfolded, beginning careers in a post-crash world; it’s hardly surprising that optimism among the young is in short supply. Millennial lives have played out against a backdrop of perpetual social, political and economic commotion, with periods of stability practically non-existent. And yet, although disillusioned and often distrustful, they have remained both ambitious and altruistic, the survey showing most are still are confident that their life goals will be achieved. They may be down, but the ‘snowflakes’, as they are sometimes derisorily called, are far from out. To the contrary, they are intent on making a decent fist of it, despite living in a present defined by change and facing a possible future of even greater uncertainty.
Sandwiched snugly between generations X and Z, Millennials, it's fair to say, have had it tough. Entering the workforce around the time of the Great Recession and now enduring the disorienting forces of the so-called fourth industrial revolution (also known as Industry 4.0), their world has been one of constant flux. History is accelerating faster than ever and technological progress in some areas is exponential, rapidly changing the face of work. And yet, with the possibility of abundance now a reality, Millennials are experiencing their economic opportunities reduce, many privileges enjoyed by their baby-booming forbears – improving living standards, home ownership etc. – increasingly out of reach.
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq three years later was supposed to mark the decline of its influence, a decline that was widely believed would be terminal. After a decade of war, people were weary and with inequality spiralling, problems at home were considered of greater concern than escapades abroad. It felt like a spent force. The political arena reflected this too: the term ‘neocon’ was reduced to an epithet, a word of derision for Democrats, and occasionally even moderated Republicans, to hurl when in heated debate and seeking to score cheap points. Over time it lost much of its meaning - no longer a reliable indicator of political outlook, simply a way to denounce or discredit. And then came the election of Donald Trump, and like with much else, things changed. Despite his campaign blasting neocon’s signature policy, the invasion of Iraq, as a ‘big fat mistake’, Trump’s presidency has offered neocons a way back. In his three tumultuous years in office, his administration has welcomed back into the fold architect of the Iraq invasion and chief hawk, John Bolton, now National Security Advisor; and appointed war-enthusiast, Mike Pompeo, as Secretary of State. The political persuasion of both is well known, and in the case of Bolton, his penchant for war may well be his defining characteristic. A similar trend can be seen in the media. Newspapers and magazines have increasingly been featuring opinion of a neocon bent. From the New York Times to the Atlantic, the development is a marked one. With bellicosity of this kind on the up, consuming not just op-eds but presidential addresses, the feeling is eerily familiar - the neocons are asserting themselves, flexing their muscles once more. <11an>limit:2;categories:jobs|conferences;disciplines:Public Economics & Economic Policy (JEL H)|Economic Systems (JEL P)</11an> A short history of neoconservatism Given its overuse, a detour back to its origins and early development helps get a better handle on the ideology and its more dangerous proclivities. Neoconservatism was a child of the 1960s, born in response to the New Left and the growing pacifism that emerged in and alongside the anti-war movement. The hallmark of its early adherents - many who identified as liberals – and the source of their zeal, was an uncompromising opposition to the totalitarian Soviet Union. Fearful that the West was ‘losing its purpose’, its fingers slipping on the mantle of global moral arbiter, neocons advocated a strident foreign policy, in which America took centre stage. They scorned Nixon and Carter’s respective attempts at détente with the Soviet Union - conciliatory politics in the face of tyranny was anathema - and celebrated Reagan’s more confrontational approach to Cold War diplomacy. When the Iron Curtain did finally fall, it was a moment both of vindication and trepidation. Buoyed by democracy’s triumph over dictatorship, they were also - with the removal of the Soviet threat - denied their rallying point, their common cause. Rhetorically speaking, with no enemy they were left toothless. It was in this environment of doctrinal uncertainty that a group of its younger acolytes, including one Paul Wolfowitz, came together to explicitly reinstate the ideology’s key principles and to reinvigorate the movement. The paper was innocuously titled the ‘Defense Planning Guidance’; it soon became known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine. The paper expressed a desire to construct a world based on American ideals that would be driven by American-directed economic growth. This would, in turn, encourage the emergence of American-style democracies, where previously there had been despotism. The world was to be administered by alliances and inter-governmental organisations led, naturally, by the U.S, and protected by means of assertive diplomacy, economic sanctions, and when necessary, the American military. In certain cases, pre-emptive military action was believed to be justified. In short, the paper’s primary concern was to prevent the emergence of a rival global power. No region was to be dominated unless under the direct supervision of the US; only then could American safety be assured. Although not to a tee, these core principles informed most US foreign policy, irrespective of government, throughout the 90s and into the 00s. Neocons in crisis The project culminated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The ousting of Saddam Hussein - premised, as we know now, on twisted intelligence - was to serve as a Petri dish for reform of the entire Middle East and the attempt to spread democracy in the region. It was, in effect, a test of the base assumptions of neoconservatism. The policy was a disaster. Over a decade later, Iraq remains in chaos, ravaged by cycles of war, and the Middle East is more fractured and less stable since intervention. Through the failure, the ambitions of the neocons were brutally checked. Their idealism, based in large part on their arrogance, had clashed violently and catastrophically with reality. They were forced to confront the fact that America was not the omnipotent force they presumed, that the imposition of elections alone cannot transform a country, and that to think either was to be unacceptably naïve or unforgivably reckless. Re-birth? And this was supposed to be the end of it, humiliation the final death knell. Neoconservatism was, for most, no longer intellectually credible, its agenda bankrupt. The corridors of power were as far away as they had ever been. And a return looked improbable, if not impossible. That was until Trump. Under his presidency, erratic as it’s been, the impulses of neoconservatism are once again audible, and getting louder. In a contradictory series of events, their re-emergence actually began with Trump castigating the neocon project, deriding the Iraq War and talking down the possibility of future overseas intervention. His campaign promised a focus on Americans, plans framed largely economically: how money was to be saved, where costs could be cut etc. The expense of conflict made it unappealing and to be avoided. Three years in office, however, and things now look very different. The revolving door of his administration has let in hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, who, in the absence of a confirmed Secretary of Defence, are de facto Trump’s most influential foreign policy advisers. And their effect is being felt. On assuming their respective roles, both set about asserting their long-held contempt for Iran, quickly bending U.S foreign policy to such feeling. Bolton has repeatedly insisted on the necessity of military action to deal with the ‘rogue’ government, an obsession that has consumed him for the better part of three decades, while Pompeo has declared that ‘there is no doubt… a connection between al-Qaeda an Iran’, and that the country’s continued ‘bloodletting and lawlessness’ needs to be stopped. With the relentless admonishments ringing in Trump’s ears, the increasingly agreeable president was easily persuaded to abandon the Iran nuclear pact. The deal had no bearing on Tehran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons, his two advisors reasoned, and therefore served little purpose. For Trump, the opportunity to dismantle any part of Obama’s legacy has rarely required much justification. Soon after, the duo pushed through the decision to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, against the advice of many military officials who warned it might encourage retaliation. In true neocon speak, Pompeo explained it as part of an attempt to ‘help the people of Iran get back their freedom’. Again, Trump quickly acquiesced. The openness and conviction with which this hawkish hostility is held appears to be infectious, the free-flying browbeating emboldening other lower profile Republicans to also speak out. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, for instance, recently joined the fray, boasting that the U.S. could defeat Iran in ‘two strikes, the first strike and the last strike’. Ominously, these developments are taking place in a growing ecology of neoconservative thinking by no means exclusive to Trump’s inner circle. Prominent journalists Ari Fleischer, Max Boot, and Robert Kagan are all regularly talking up the advantages of a pre-emptive strike on Iran to their large and loyal audiences, while broadly liberal publications have been reserving countless column inches for those hankering after conflict. Bret Stephens, writing for the New York Times, declared only this month that if Iran doesn’t change its behaviour, ‘we should sink its navy’. Talk of this kind is dangerous; that invasion is viewed so simply, staggering. As analyst Aaron David Miller has said, in case of invasion Iran ‘has many options available to it’. It is a powerful nation with proxies situated throughout the region. Utilising them, as it would if conflict arose, it easily commands enough military strength to badly hurt America: Hezbollah could strike Israel, Shia militias in Iraq could attack American forces, and Iranian backed groups could go after Americans in both Syria and Yemen. The conflict would be messy and destabilise a region already so fractured and volatile. Despite this, according to reports, the Pentagon is planning to increase American presence in the region by 5000-10,000 troops, this after an aircraft carrier, bomber planes and anti-missile batteries have already been sent. Trump has also committed to significantly enlarging military spending, what would be the largest increase in the country’s history, and at the end of June 2019 reportedly blocked a US strike on Iran 10 minutes before it was planned. The signs are not good. War with Iran looks closer than it has done for many years. Neocons have infiltrated the Whitehouse, and are bending the ear of its attention-seeking inhabitant, acclimatising him to their sabre-rattling rhetoric. Meanwhile, an increasingly compliant media is egging them on. The necons may not be huge in numbers but, evidently, they occupy positions of serious influence. For the sake of peace, it's time we all took notice.
In its short and controversial history, neoconservatism has changed America. For almost 60 years, the ideology has variously been embraced and rejected; celebrated for its patriotism and commitment to democracy; and disdained for it hawkish arrogance and imperialistic tendencies. It has simultaneously proven uniquely divisive, while also unifying people across party lines. Quite simply, recent American political history cannot be made sense of without an understanding of neoconservatism; such has been its influence.
Powering the West’s rise from provincial backwater to global force, they permitted Europeans, for the first time in hundreds of years, to experience better living standards than their forebears. More recently, coal-based growth also became an obsession of developing countries, notably China and India, where, in the latter half of the 20th-century industrialisation advanced at breakneck speed, lifting billions out of extreme poverty. Herein lies the great irony. As a result of climate change, these previously poverty-alleviating forces now look set to plunge those billions, those who have just extracted themselves from subsistence living, back to the brink. And such is the speed of the change and our reluctance to address, and in some cases even accept it; the return could be made in less than a generation. Although in areas better prepared, the West, too, stands to suffer greatly, the consequences of climate deterioration destined to afflict indiscriminately, ignorant of national borders. The last year provided a taste of things to come, as North America was subjected to droughts, hurricanes, and forest fires, of sizes and severity previously unknown, leaving parts of the continent ravaged. And there will be no let-up; the regularity of such events is set to increase. The only question is: how far will humanity let things slide? Browse our PhD listings for more opportunities GDP set to plummet In terms of GDP, the devastation that awaits is on a scale that exceeds what is currently economically conceivable. As David Foster Wells has so eloquently explained, the spectrum of growth with which we have any experience, and thus can realistically fathom, ‘stretches from contractions of about 15%, effects we study still in histories of the Depression, to growth about half as fast – about 7%’. Quite simply, today’s terminology and categories are not really capable of reflecting developments outside of these parameters. Unfortunately, outside of these parameters is exactly where we are heading. In one projection – based on the work of respected researchers Solomon Hsiang, Marshall Burke, and Edward Marshall – in which the terms of the Paris Agreement are fulfilled and warming is limited to 2.5-3C, global per capita output is reduced by 15-25% by 2100. For context, this is comparable to, and actually slightly higher than, what was experienced in the 1930s. The difference, however, is that this time around there’s no guarantee a recovery will even be possible. What in today’s economic terms is called a ‘trough’ could become the new economic baseline, the new norm. In fact, on our current course, we’ll be lucky to even get there: the global emissions trajectory, as it stands, has us comfortably missing the commitments made in Paris. Indeed, with climate-threatening leaders Trump and Bolsonaro presiding over two of the world’s largest polluters, the Paris agreement could soon be considered the high point of climate change consensus – no longer a realistic target, simply a nostalgic reminder of collaborative times gone by. The Great Dying The required transformation of energy infrastructure alone would require the mobilisation of people and resources never before seen in peacetime. Warming of 3C, 4C, 5C, or even worse, therefore, remain distinct possibilities and require contemplation – to warn us away from such paths if nothing else. According to the report cited above, 4 degrees, which lies ‘on the low end of the range of warming implied by our current trajectory’, is predicted to cut global output by more the 30%, far more than the Great Recession of 2008, which saw a reduction of 2%, and double that of the Great Depression. Foster-Wells has called this fate the ‘Great Dying’ – if reached things would continue to worsen inexorably. To grasp the enormity of what awaits, and to inform sensible future conduct, it’s helpful to perceive of our climate as a superstructure within which we operate: we are governed by its rules and forced to adapt to its conditions. When these conditions are degraded the consequential impact infiltrates every aspect of life, as every aspect exists within the structure. From the regulation of bacteria in our bodies and the air we breathe, to our ability to travel the planet unencumbered and access water, literally everything is at stake. The same holds true for our economies, both local and global. The warming of the globe, and with it, the natural disasters, flooding, and health crises it entails, will incur costs economies will struggle to absorb, many we are already beginning to see. Countries with a large share of GDP in the agriculture sector, as most developing countries do, will especially suffer, because of all industries agriculture has a particularly low resilience against rising temperature. A report published in Nature Communications in 2017 has predicted that as a result of droughts and water shortages, the U.S will see its annual crop yield decrease 40% by the end of the century. In a pattern typical of climate change, things are projected to be far worse closer to the equator. On our present path, and without huge technological advancement, India, sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, and much of Southeast Asia face the devastation of their agriculture. The UN has predicted that, in turn, this widespread crop depletion will help create 1 billion climate refugees by 2050, placing further pressure on less-damaged agriculture elsewhere. Then there is flooding. None but the most modern infrastructure is built to withstand the type of relentless flooding that’s coming, and that in parts of the world we’ve already seen glimpses of. America and India are particularly vulnerable, having aggressively and rather carelessly developed their coastlines. In just a matter of years, luxury sea-facing apartment blocks and hotels in places like Miami Beach will soon become underwater relics, while densely populated metropolises like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkatta, home to tens of millions, will ‘face catastrophe’, as invading waters cause untold damage. By 2045 the real estate impact on New Jersey alone is predicted to exceed $25 billion. Across the world, flooding in March 2019 – just a single month – created $9 billion in economic losses, highlighting what analyst Michal Lörinc called ‘the continued vulnerabilities which exist in both developed and emerging markets’. Hurricanes, too, are being created with greater regularity and greater force, rising temperatures increasing their rainfall and wind speeds. Hurricane Florence, which hit the Carolinas in 2018, raged for almost 3 weeks and was estimated to have caused up to $50 billion worth of damage. Without intervention, the regularity of such events will grow, and there will come a time that our inaction will designate when there is simply not enough wealth, locally or globally, to cope. Rebuilding will become a constant state. Declining productivity Just as healthy productivity rates will be needed to mitigate the coming chaos, they are stagnating, and, unfortunately, predicted to fall further – this, too, a result of warming temperatures. Research, like that from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has exposed the negative cognitive effects of direct heat, showing, with alarming precision, how unproductive humans are expected to become as the world warms. ‘When global warming reaches 1.5, 2, 3 and 4°C respectively, the average Work Productivity Loss (WPL) will be 9 (19), 12 (31), 22 (61) and 33 (94) days for developed (developing) countries. Countries in Southeast Asia in a 1.5°C-warming world would suffer the same loss as the developed countries would in a 4°C-warming world.’ With every rise in temperature, GDP suffers, and like compound interest, the effects increase over time. Evidently, the costs of acting on climate change are enormous. What’s also clear, though, is that the costs of not acting are far greater. Market logic can no longer be relied on; it shouldn’t be expected to benevolently act on our behalf. Instead, concerted, coordinated and cooperative intervention is needed. An uncertain future Given the global political landscape, this feels far-fetched. From those with the power to address climate breakdown, we’re accustomed to bluster and virtue signalling, that is, if its reality is even accepted. The main concern is always the next election, never the next generation. And so carbon continues to be emitted into the atmosphere at record rates. Even with imagery of climate degradation saturating global media, little seems to change. The West, in particular, has been guilty of a ‘thank god its not on my doorstep’ mentality. And yet, it is; it’s on everyone’s. Even to those apparently blind, this will soon become incontrovertible. As it is, economies across the world stand braced, many already under the strain of climate change. As costs continue to wrack up, as they will without action, some will buckle under the pressure; this we can be assured of. What follows is anyone’s guess. What we do know, though, and what history instructs us, is that finding out is a risky game indeed.
The history of economic growth, the kind to which we are now accustomed, is inseparably intertwined with the discovery, and then plunder, of fossil fuels. Some historians have even argued their unearthing was its main catalyst, relegating more popular theories of free trade and technological innovation. The argument is seductively simple, and although something of an exaggeration, usefully highlights the strong connection between the two – for in tandem, they radically altered the course of human civilisation.
In 2017, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change found that 153 billion working hours had been lost worldwide due to high temperatures, predominantly on farms, and that high temperatures were simultaneously affecting the ability of crops to grow. And Professor Paul Elkins of University College London argued in response to these findings that tackling climate change ‘is going to be a net benefit to humanity in monetary terms.’ Download the INOMICS Handbook! But economics hasn’t cottoned on. Most dominant economic theories work on the assumption that technology and progress can overcome any biological/ biophysical limitations the earth may have. This, of course, isn’t true; we are beginning to see some of the limitations of our unsustainable existence, the above being just a few examples. In 1966 economist Kenneth Boulding called this economic conception of the world the ‘cowboy’, that being a metaphor of the noble wanderer who roams the ‘illimitable plains’ of endless discoverable resources with no thought that they might, at some point, come to an end. Boulding said all the way back then that the problems our planet is facing are ‘not all in the future by any means’. Indeed, they are currently more visible than ever. But this apathy or disinterest with dealing with the problem of climate change isn’t limited to economics. A 2018 Gallup poll revealed that only 64% of Americans think climate change is caused by human activities, and of those only 45% believe it will be a serious threat in their lifetimes. In the Pacific countries and east Asia, only 37% believe climate change will harm them personally, and just 26% of people in the Middle East believe climate change is a problem that is harming people right now. Multiple techniques have been used to change attitudes, including showing the connections between climate change and air pollution and health problems, or to things like the aforementioned forest fires in the USA. Multiple techniques have been used to change attitudes, including showing the connections between climate change and air pollution and health problems, or to things like the aforementioned forest fires in the USA. A common tactic is to show people how important it is to take a personal responsibility for the problem. Unfortunately, this often causes a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance, which is a feeling of discomfort when a person’s beliefs are challenged by new evidence given to them. In the case of climate change, this actually causes people to turn away from the issue due to feelings of guilt, rather than work to combat it. Instead of giving people personal responsibility, a better method is to get people to believe climate change is a communal issue that requires action from the whole community, society, and world. However, a small but growing field of economics wants people to think about the environment in a different sense altogether. If questioned, would you be able to estimate the monetary value of the earth’s ecology? If this figure existed, would it make people stop and think a little harder about exactly what it is we’re destroying? Would it make people care more about the environment if they knew mistreating it would negatively impact the economy? These are questions ecological economics aims to answer. Cowboys and cosmonauts Ecological economics is, in part, a reaction to the traditional cowboy conception of the world. Boulding’s idea was to instead think of the world as a ‘spaceman economy, in which the earth has become a solitary spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything’, and in which human beings must find their natural, sustainable state. In this metaphor, all we have is what is on our spaceship with us – and when that runs out, the money runs out, too. As Robert Costanza, a leading ecological economist, put it in his 1989 article ‘What is Ecological Economics?’, the discipline aims to ‘make economics more cognizant of ecological impacts’ and simultaneously ‘make ecology more sensitive to economic forces, incentives, and constraints’. Costanza reiterated what Boulding had said over twenty years before: ‘current economic paradigms… are all based on the underlying assumption of continuing and unlimited economic growth.’ To combat what Costanza saw as the ‘ignorance’ humans have of the world’s environmental and economic interdependence, he explored technology’s capacity to circumventthe limits of the environment. His conclusion? Technology can’t endlessly circumvent the environment. The limits exist, and economics needs to realise this, soon. Ecological economics argues that using only GDP as a metric (as many economic fields currently do) is unreliable because it doesn’t take into account the costs of things like pollution and deforestation; in its place, it argues for GPI, Genuine Progress Indicator. GPI uses the same data as GDP, but adds things like income gaps, poverty rates and environmental damage. By this judgment economic worth peaked per person in 1978 and we have actually become poorer due to our destruction of the environment. In this sense, the discipline bears similarities to the green and environmental movements that began gaining ground in the 1970s. Ecological economists recognise – and they argue that ‘standard’ economists often don’t realise this, or at least choose to ignore it – that growth cannot be endless. In an interview from 2010, Costanza noted that ‘in nature, things don’t grow forever’. Instead, organisms reach their natural adult size, and then they stop. But this doesn’t mean they stop improving. Organisms continue to develop even after they stop getting physically bigger – like an adult human that isn’t getting any taller, but continues to read books and go to the gym to get smarter and fitter. Constanza admits that the thought of the economy no longer growing is a terrifying one for regular economists, but argues that the economy stalling isn’t a bad thing. Rather, what is needed now is progression to a ‘steady state’, in which our society still improves, but our economy doesn’t get bigger. The revolution will be green In a nutshell, ecological economics attempts to show how human economies and natural ecologies are intrinsically linked and have evolved together through time. The field bridges the gap between economics and several other disciplines, including archaeology, history and anthropology. It wants to change the common understanding that human technology can overcome any boundaries the world throws at us by showing that this judgment is unsustainable and, essentially, wrong. But ecological economics is more than a call to action for economists to change the way they think about the world: it also tries to talk about the natural world in a way people can understand. In 1997, a paper came out that estimated the value of ‘ecosystem services’ – that is,the monetary value of the ecological systems that contribute to human civilisation – at $33 trillion per year. The GNP of the entire world at the time was around $18 trillion. Talking to people in terms of monetary figures helps them comprehend the worth of the environment and the scale of the problem. Money talks. Ecological economists have grasped that. What’s the solution to the forthcoming environmental disaster, then? Sustainable development and green policies, according to ecological economists. The International Society for Ecological Economics, for example, states its purpose as ‘developing a sustainable world.’ Its solutions to the current problems include research into environmental tax reform, how equity relates to sustainability, and how ecological and economic models can be integrated to protect biodiversity and the earth’s atmosphere. To this end, it publishes the latest cutting-edge research on topics such as clean development, transnational conservation projects, and the effects of deforestation in its journal. And it’s not the only one: there’s also the International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics, founded in India, which aims to link the discipline to a closer study of ecological statistics. But this isn’t just research for the sake of research – the field wants to change people’s attitude towards ecology, and genuinely influence policy. The International Society and these two journals have developed against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating environmental situation and a political sphere that doesn’t seem to care about the crisis we’re facing; yet at the same time, the green and environmental movements have never had more public support. With natural disasters abounding, Western countries dropping out of climate agreements, and nonsensical debates over the actual existence of climate change still being held, the field has an essential role in showing that the economy is fundamentally linked to the natural world we are rapidly destroying. As it becomes increasingly clear that environmental catastrophe is just round the corner, it’s time for economists – and politicians, and everyone else – to finally start paying attention.
In 2018, the World Meteorological Organization published its statement on the State of the Climate. The report showed that the 20 warmest years on record have occurred in the last 22 years. In the same year, the State of California’s Energy Commission published a report linking changing atmospheric conditions due to global warming as a direct cause of the devastating forest fires that swept through California, burning nearly 1.9 million acres’ of land and costing more than US$3.5 billion of damages.
How to post an Announcement with us To post your announcement, please follow the steps below: Create a free account. You can find the "Create Account" on the top right corner of our websites Login to your account Click on “Publish” on the top right hand corner of the website Choose the Announcement level and promotion type that you want Enter all the Announcement details. We recommend that you have all the details ready beforehand, in a word document. Preview and publish your announcement. See tips and tricks below Confirm your details and your Announcement will go online shortly after NOTE: New user accounts are subject to a quality check for the first post - this is typically completed within one working day. Top Tips & Tricks for Posting an Announcement 1) Schedule your announcement to be published in the future As general rule, in the posting form once you press the “Save” button your announcement will go live on the website. If you would like to have a little extra time to edit your announcement and get it approved by your team, we recommend scheduling it to go online at a convenient time in the future. While uploading the content of your announcement, your will find a field which allows you to choose the publishing date of your announcement, where you can set it to go live in a couple of days or even hours. 2) Classify your announcement using the best matching disciplines and type of opportunity On INOMICS we have 5 main categories of opportunities that you can promote: jobs, courses, study programs, funding options and events. Additionally, you can choose between 19 disciplines (JEL codes) in economics and social sciences. Our users are profiled according to their discipline and career stage. Therefore, the reach of your announcement depends on how well you classify it. For example, if you are offering a summer school in digital business and economics, the classification under courses (summer school) and disciplines (Business Economics - JEL M, Innovation & Growth - JEL O) will guarantee exposure correctly on INOMICS. 3) Upload an effective description of your offer The description of your offer should be concise and clear. In the description, you have a space in which to explain your job, study, event or funding offer or opportunity at your institution, or, you can explicitly invite readers to participate in your upcoming event. It is important to deliver enough information to our users so that there is just enough to catch their attention and motivate them, but not to overwhelm them with an unnecessarily long text. Further details can always be found on your website by clicking through, if our users are interested. Focus on what you are offering, important dates like the application deadlines and start dates, why they should apply, and what you expect in applicants. 4) Add a header image If you book a featured or premium announcement, you have the possibility to upload a header image. Header images are very prominent on your announcement page and in the listing/search result pages, so they offer an excellent space to include an eye-catching campus picture which leaves our users with a positive impression of your institution. Other customers use the header images to include branding information such as a slogan of the institution or mission of the program they are promoting. 5) Upload a quality logo The logo uploaded in your announcement is later used in the listing and search result pages, for the creation of mini banners, listing in our email alert and display in social media. In order to appear styled and visible, we recommend that you upload square logos with a minimum width of 300 pixels. In this way you ensure that the brand of your institution is carried neatly and legibly. 6) Use the image gallery If you book a standard, featured or premium announcement, you have the possibility to build a carousel of images into your page. This is an opportunity to display your campus, research and study facilities, team pictures and events, and other marketing pictures that you have available. Depending on the level of announcement, up to 10 pictures are allowed on the page. The maximum size of the pictures should be 2MB. Best performing pictures are rectangular, with a size of a 2:1 ratio. 7) Keep the title of your announcement short and relevant The title of your announcement will be displayed in different places on the website, therefore its relevance and length will help you to attract more users to your announcement. Long titles are cut after 80 characters in our search results, as well as in additional advertisements such as those in email alerts and mini-banners on the website. A maximum length of 80 characters including spaces is recommended to avoid distortions in the title of the announcement. 8) Include tracking links to better measure the results from your campaign The results of your campaign can be measured in terms of brand exposure, traffic delivered to your site and number of applicants. In order to make life easier and measure the effectiveness of your campaign quickly and easily, we recommend that you include tracking links. With a tracking link you can find the traffic delivered by INOMICS directly in your Google Analytics report. You can set up a campaign name, medium and source for us, so that you can easily track the number of sessions, users, and behaviour directly on your website. On the following link you can create a tracking URL to be used on your announcements: Campaign URL Builder 9) Include concrete calls to action (CTAs) in your announcement As we mentioned before, the main goal of your announcement is to motivate our users to enquire more about your opportunity and ultimately, apply. By suggesting concrete actions in the description of your announcement you will help catch readers' attention and drive them to your website or specific landing page. Each Announcement includes by default the possibility to include an "Apply Now" button and a “Visit Website" link, however you can add more actions in the description of your announcement. Suggested CTAs include: download a brochure, send an email to admissions, call a telephone number, visit the website, etc. 10) Add relevant tags to your announcement On INOMICS each piece of content includes tags. Tags are used to recommend relevant content to users and to identify content with a specific topic. Including accurate and concise tags will help you to make your announcement more relevant and visible to the right audience. Include tags related to the topics and disciplines of your offer, or add tags related to locations, relevant research areas or requirements for your desired applicants. 11) Use the Direct Applications / Apply Now Function By activating the field "Receive Direct Applications", an Apply Now button will be shown on your Announcement page. Interested candidates can submit their documents and a cover note directly on INOMICS. The applications and documents are saved conveniently in your INOMICS user account. You will be notified when their are new applications (maximum one notification per day) by email. If you need assistance posting your announcement, please feel free to contact us at info@inomics.com. We are also happy to set up, format and post your page online for you as part of our posting assistance service - you just need to provide us with a URL, a word or PDF document with the content of your announcement and we will create a preview announcement for you. This posting assistance costs an additional €75+vat per announcement.
Read our tips and tricks on how to maximise your announcement listings with us. We hope that this helps you to boost your recruitment and advertising campaigns on inomics.com and receive the best possible results. In this article we'll share with you, the Announcement publication process and our top 10 tips and tricks for posting an announcement.
The INOMICS Questionnaire: Fratzscher vs Rossi-Hansberg
Download the INOMICS Handbook! Marcel Fratzscher: What is your favorite place on earth? Esteban Rossi-Hansberg: My office: The thrill of having my own space to work and concentrate has never gone away since I got my first office at Stanford’s economics department in 2002. Perhaps the reason can be traced back to my PhD. Back then, Chicago Ph.D. students did not get their own desk. I wrote my dissertation in the cafeteria of the Business School. MF: Outside of economics, what occupation would you have if you could be absolutely anything? ERH: I would be an artist or a chef. I love the creativity and the sense of accomplishment. If you think about it, it is not that different from research in economics. There is a technical part to our work, but the most creative (and best) part involves coming up with useful and beautiful abstractions. MF: What is the virtue you appreciate the most? ERH: Smarts are always useful, but in my experience not that scarce; at least in our profession and at the level required for most endeavors in economics. For me, the most important quality is perseverance and the ability to work hard continuously over many years. MF: Your all-time favourite figure in economics? ERH: I have three favorites, Friedman, Becker and Lucas. In my view, this trio has defined and expanded the reach and methodological rigor of the field more than any other. MF: Your #1 economics blog? ERH: I am not an avid reader of blogs, but I like VoxEu. It is a good, fast way to stay connected with research on a number of issues not directly related to the topics I study. I also like that it is based on real research, not just opinions MF: Your ideal student? ERH: Independent, smart and with a lot of grit. MF: What should be done to address a gender bias in research in economics? ERH: Focus on ideas and their quality, not on who produces them. MF: What is the most misguided research agenda in economics? ERH: Reduced-form empirical studies of the overall economic impact of climate change are misguided. How can we aggregate and extrapolate over hundreds of years without relying on theories of the economic mechanisms of adaptation? MF: What is the most promising current research field or issue in economics? ERH: Quantitative spatial economics: The theory and quantification on this topic have evolved dramatically, and the tools are ready to be applied to a large variety of extremely important substantive issues. There are very few topics in economics where space is not important! MF: Where does economic research have the most influence on policy-making? ERH: Probably monetary economics: Inflation is under control almost everywhere because research helped understand the mechanisms that generated it. The reaction of monetary policy during the great recession was very much driven by existing research as well. MF: On what issues should policy listen more to economists? ERH: Local policy and local investments: Governments and international institutions spend fortunes developing infrastructure and promoting reforms that affect local economies without doing proper, stateof-the-art, evaluations. Urban and regional economic policy is much more influenced by architects and urban developers than by economists. This should change. Economists have good tools to improve spatial and urban policy as well as resource allocation and infrastructure across space. MF: What is your career advice to a young economics researcher? ERH: Try to be methodologically broad, specialize only on topics, never on research techniques. Thematic specialization can lead to more depth in your knowledge, methodological specialization will only put limits on your capabilities as a researcher. Header Image Credit: Marcel Fratzscher / DIW and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (kindly provided)
Esteemed economist, Princeton Professor, and friend of INOMICS, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, generously took time out of his busy schedule to take part in the second INOMICS Handbook Questionnaire. Opposite him, in his customary role of quizmaster, was Professor Marcel Fratzscher, president of the DIW Berlin, and one of Germany’s leading voices in macroeconomics. Keeping with tradition, and as a nod to the heavyweight reputations of those involved, we dubbed the encounter ‘Fratzscher v Rossi-Hansberg’. What played out proved illuminating and often personal, the dialogue shedding light on the inner workings of the mystery that is the ‘economist’s mind’. For anyone even loosely connected to economics the following conversation will make an interesting read.
How the Economics+ approach is changing the face of the discipline
A growing number of graduates from this program have ascended the ranks in many sectors, from banking and consultancy, to NGOs and International Development. The Master’s is distinguished not only by its impressive academic staff but also by its adoption of the Economics+ approach to teaching. To find out more, INOMICS sat down with Economics Lecturer and Researcher at Radboud, Charan van Krevel, for a chat about the MSc in Economics, his time as a student, and his position now as part of the Economics’ faculty at this great university. Much is made of the Economics+ approach that underpins the teaching of the Master’s program. How does it differ from more traditional ways of teaching economics? Traditionally taught economics approaches economic decision-making from a solely rational perspective. People are assumed to be optimizers: creatures capable of processing all available information when confronted with a choice, and who act simply to maximize their own happiness. In reality, we are constrained by the physiology of our brains and, most importantly, by our environment. Therefore Economics+ integrates insights from psychology, law, and sociology into its methodology, to better understand the occasionally counter-intuitive decisions people make. We do not negate the traditional perspective entirely as there remains much to be gained from its study; rather, we shift the emphasis toward a holistic approach to human decision-making. How did the Economics+ approach develop? Economics+ has actually been the main characteristic of our Bachelor’s and Master’s programs for a long time. Even before the crisis in 2008—which revealed the dangers of trusting any economic model that had the “optimizing individual” at its base—we placed great emphasis on the context in which economic processes happen. In the short time since its inception, Economics+ has really gained in popularity, and not just in the Netherlands. This development, I believe, owes a lot to the teaching and research of Economics at the Radboud University. What advantages does the Economics+ approach bring to studying, work and life generally? First off, I should say that it’s not required for students to have prior experience of Economics+; in fact, most do not. Introductory courses like Pluralisms in Economics will bring students up to speed. With respect to the advantages it offers, we believe Economics+ helps foster a more realistic and nuanced approach to looking at the world. It challenges students to constantly look beyond their pre-existing conceptual horizons—a process that is designed to produce critical, flexible and adaptive problem solvers. These skills, when developed correctly, are crucial in devising policies, and are something that both companies and governments have expressed admiration for when describing our alumni. We welcome prospective students who are motivated, eager to learn, and looking to expand their horizons. We also believe that this critical attitude and broad perspective that Economics+ instils is transferred to the way we perceive and engage with society. It enables us to better understand the viewpoints of others—crucial for consensus building—and prevents us from developing tunnel vision. Ultimately, these skills help us engage with each other more constructively in the political, economic, and social arenas. I am confident that exemplars of Economics+ will contribute to building bridges. Where do graduates from the MSc in Economics typically end up? What are the career prospects? The career prospects are promising! 95% of our graduates find a job within 6 months of graduation, and 35% of graduates already have a job even before graduating. Usually, they choose large enterprises, with 100+ or 1000+ employees, but some also prefer smaller companies. The type of occupation they pursue depends a lot on their specialization. Still, a large portion of our graduates decide to go into consultancy, whether it is financial or accounting, or they go into banking. Some also opt for a career in international development, at an NGO or a government. Of course, some graduates, like me, stay in academia to teach or do research. How much one-on-one time should prospective students expect while studying the MSc in Economics? One-on-one time with lecturers is either built into a course itself, or is optional. For instance, when you write your master’s thesis you will have a supervisor, available to you personally, with one-on-one time. Additionally, most lecturers have an open door policy if students wish to visit them or discuss something one-on-one. Our small scale teaching strategy is not only about built-in one-on-one time, but also relies a lot on student initiative and lecturer approachability. Does the department support students in finding internships? And are there existing links with other institutions that help facilitate this process? We find it important that students have the freedom to choose an internship if they so wish. There are several organizations with ties to Radboud that have internship programs for students. Some of these organizations are student-led, while others are independent companies. Either way, we give students the freedom do an internship by awarding credits for their completion. Your students have ranked you highly on their student evaluations. What exactly about your teaching style do you think led to this? Although I can’t speak for my students, I can describe my teaching philosophy. For students to learn something I have to present information in a way that makes them want to learn it. So often I use humour to explain a dull theoretical concept; other times I provoke them by arguing an unpopular opinion and challenging them to prove me wrong, rewarding them when they succeed. Ultimately, I always want to engage with my students on a personal level. In trying to do so, I often use examples from my personal life. I tell my students that by the end of the course, I want to know all their names. Content-wise, I always keep in mind why I find something interesting myself, and try to inspire my students by exhibiting my sincere toddler-like curiosity. Being alumni of the Economics+ program and now a lecturer at the faculty what would you say the program has contributed to your professional success? Why did you choose the Nijmegen School of Management at Radboud University for your studies? And if you had to choose again, would you make the same choice? I owe a lot of my professional success to the program and being granted the opportunity to join the lecturers who inspired me as a student has been an absolute privilege. I remember when I first enrolled in the Economics Bachelor’s when I was a teenager. I decided to study economics because it was by far my favourite subject in high school and I wanted to pursue a career at a financial corporation, perhaps as an accountant. But somewhere along the way my curiosity for science and economic thought drove me towards academia. My performance in the Master’s distinguished me from my fellow students and my experience as a lecturer gave me the chance to pursue my dream of becoming a researcher too. The study climate in Nijmegen has definitely been conducive to my relative success. I got to know my professors personally while I was a student, and they encouraged me to follow my ambition, something that was hugely motivating. Moreover, the city of Nijmegen itself has always been the most comfortable place to live. I often travel the world, but there’s no place like Nijmegen. Despite some bumps I’ve experienced along the road, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. And finally, where is the best place to relax for economics students at Radboud University? That’s tricky, because Radboud has so much to offer. Personally, I like going on serene walks in one of the many parks that border the campus, or the huge forest that’s close by. In my student days I often turned to the vibrant city centre or one of the beaches. Nijmegen is not a coastal city, but we have several lakes and rivers that have fantastic beaches on their banks. There are also some concert venues in- and outside the city centre that I still frequent, in addition to the array of other nightlife options.
Situated in the oldest city of the Netherlands, Nijmegen, Radboud University has firmly established itself as one of the country’s most reputable institutions of higher education. Offering programmes across the academic spectrum, its MSc in Economics, in particular, is attracting students from all over the world.