* The original article was published in the INOMICS Customer Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Last year I wrote a post on whether free education would replace the skyrocketing tuition fees being faced around the world. A year later and this topic has expanded so much that it has a name: MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – and there are, literally, millions of them and the trend is growing fast, as illustrated by this ‘MOOC Timeline’.

Yesterday, the 19th of Feb, the economics community lost another famed scholar – Armen Alchian, 98, professor emeritus at the University of California Los Angeles.

Image Credit: Liz FosslienHave you ever considered dating an economist, and if yes, what did you decide? If you are puzzled by this question, there are plenty of resources, which can help you to find an answer. The amount of material on this topic found by searching Google and the number of jokes made clearly indicate that it is indeed a hot topic, even more so on a Valentine’s Day.

Last year we published a list of “The Best Economics Android Apps”, with the intention to follow it up with a post about economics apps for iOS devices later. As promised, here is the list of the apps for economists, who prefer to use Apple products, and which could be useful for both students and professionals in economics.

 The US-based International Association for Energy Economics is the world’s largest organization of Energy Economists with members from over 100 countries. Part of their mandate includes facilitating the mutual association of people interested in energy economics, in order to create a forum for professional discussion and to provide a means of international communication and exchange. Collaboration between INOMICS and IAEE has already benefitted both organizations in terms of consolidating global reach and sharing resources.

Two weeks having passed since ASSA 2013 we have put together a list of links from economics blogs, which highlight some of the sessions, papers and thoughts triggered by the discussions. If you  have found more interesting resources share them with us in the comments!

As we reached the end of the year 2012, we decided to compile a list of the top INOMICS blog posts, those that received a record number of visitors throughout the year.  Enjoy your reading and Happy New Year to everyone!

Apps (already “Word of the Year” in 2010), have become an integral part of our everyday lives, bringing to our phones not only entertainment, but also helpful tools to be used for educational and professional purposes. Downloadable for free or for a price, there are a number of handy apps created especially for economists, which come in the form of data sets, quizzes, educational videos, podcasts or simply mobile versions of media.

It is that time of year again!

Based on survey responses from economists and recruiters from over 70 countries, the INOMICS Job Market Report 2012 reveals the latest trends in the academic job market for economists worldwide.

After our tour of economics conferences this summer, the INOMICS team was impressed by the number of young economists at these events. Anecdotally, many delegates have the impression that there is a trend towards younger academics at even long-established, annual events, as well as more female delegates than were present in the past. Perhaps the time of economics conferences as the preserve of distinguished, yet silver-haired, bearded men is coming to a close.