Discover 399 opportunities in economics

The annual American Economic Association Meeting is a well-known event bringing together some of the brightest minds in economics and probably counting as one of the largest gatherings of young academics in one place. Here at INOMICS we are delighted to have been a part of this annual gathering for the second year in a row, as besides attendance of exceptional academic sessions, it is also a rare opportunity to meet and greet our users and readers personally.

At times it is hard to believe how fast time flies – yet another year is over! 2013 was an exciting year for the INOMICS blog: in 12 months, the number of readers quadrupled, the blog was launched in 3 additional languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese), and we got ever more inspiration to share interesting and useful resources, research and stories with the academic community.

Econometrics is a thorough discipline that demands time and effort to be mastered. For many people who want to pursue a degree in economics it serves as an obstacle, but as we’ve shown before, there are many resources you can use to your advantage to become proficient in it: blogs and podcasts can introduce you to the topic and give practical advice, free online courses will incentivize you to learn systematically and increase your ability to perform a research using different econometrics and statistical software like “R” or “Stata”, and YouTube channels can greatly support your studies by giving access to lectures and tutorials of great professors at any time convenient for you.

Figure 1. Average number of applications per position

The Report is based on a survey between April and June 2013, in which 2,380 professionals and recruiters in the academic job market for economists answered questions about salaries, international professional mobility, the value of different levels of academic degree, and other issues related to economics and finance careers.

As previously mentioned in our articles about Spanish professionals moving to South America and Brazil as a new destination for skilled migration, Latin America is becoming ever more attractive in terms of professional development for people from all over the world. Latin American migration trends are undoubtedly connected to demographic and economic indicators for the region. In some cases, countries like Brazil stand out thanks to promising conditions for foreign employees, or increasing living standards and wages for the higher-educated workforce.

Yesterday INOMICS released the Economics Job Market Report 2013 (Worldwide Overview). The report contains insights about the academic job market, compiled from answers from almost 2,500 economists and recruiters from all over the world who completed a survey earlier this year. The findings of the report include salaries, recruiters’ and candidates’ employment preferences, regional disparities, skills & specializations most in demand and other general trends in the economics job market.

In recent months we have published a series of articles about the best economics departments in Europe, Asia and Latin America. After covering the methodologies of ranking for universities in Latin America, we wrote about the best economics institutions in Chile, Colombia and Brazil.

This Monday, October 14th, Eugene F. Fama
 and Lars Peter Hansen
 (University of Chicago, USA) and Robert J. Shiller (
Yale University, USA) won the Nobel Prize in Economics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded them “for their empirical analysis of asset prices”.

Since its foundation by Portuguese colonists, Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, has experienced an important immigrant flow. Over time, the Brazilian government has influenced this flow by implementing policies that support the needs of the economy. If during the first half of the 20th century governmental policies targeted low-skilled immigrants for work in the agricultural sector, in the last quarter of the century the government aimed to attract highly skilled immigrants to the country. The new trend was marked by the adoption of a new immigration law in 1981, which introduced new processes for visas and work permits and created a number of obstacles for low skilled migration.

Teaching, whether at school or university level, is generally and  rightly considered a worthy occupation. As supported by some Professor Ratings, however, unfortunately not every high school, college or university can boast perfect ratings for their academic staff, and many individual lecturers and professors have room for improvement, at least in the views of the students.

Business Economics is a rather broad area of economics covering everything from business organization, management and marketing to the role of entrepreneurs and impact of the government on corporations. It is also assumed to be one of the most applicable research branches within economics: where today’s academic research might result in tomorrow’s industry implementations.

At this time of year, with the summer heat visibly rising from the Berlin pavement, for many there is nothing more appealing than a cold beer in one of the city’s numerous beer gardens. And perhaps among these Berlin beer lovers, more than a couple of economists might be found as well.

University rankings are considered to be an important tool, if not the most relevant one, in determining the quality of education at higher education institutions, schools, departments and programs according to a specific set of factors. Rankings are often consulted by both applicants in the university admission process deciding on their next place of study or work, as well as directors of the institutions measured in the rankings as a benchmark against other relevant institutions.

Following my last post listing our favourite economics blogs, I have looked a little closer at the blogging community and who the potential contenders are for THE coveted position of top economics blog.

The literature research students need to rely on throughout all of their thesis writing is diverse. Broadly categorized there are three types of literature useful for PhD students: research/topic literature, methods literature, and ‘how to do your PhD’ literature. A somewhat similar classification of PhD materials can, for example, be found in Chris Hart’s Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences (2010, Sage, p.2), which I recommend immensely.

The application deadline for the winter semester in many Latin American universities is approaching. To help those considering further education or work in this region we are sharing a list of top Economics Departments in Latin America. If you are interested in universities in other regions, check out our previous posts on the Top 10 Economics Departments in Europe and Top 10 Economics Institutions in Asia. The following list is based on the QS Latin American University Rankings for Economics and Econometrics.

At INOMICS we strive to offer the best resources for economists to support them in their careers. Besides providing information on jobs, courses and conferences in the economics field, in partnership with RePEc we’ve been working on making economics research more accessible to our users. As a means of support in promoting economics research, in April 2013

According to our study last year, 35% of economists are working outside their home countries.  The majority of economists go to work to the US, Germany and France (11% of the respondents respectively), followed by Switzerland (8%), Italy, Netherlands and the UK (6% respectively).

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

Source: Estadística de Variaciones Residenciales y Estimaciones de la Población Actual, INE.

With the application deadlines for PhD and Master’s courses in Europe approaching, we decided to post a list of Top 10 European Economics Departments to support your decision when choosing the right institution. As all university rankings have their flaws and there is an obvious shortage of rankings for specific disciplines, we combined two ranking systems in one table: RePEc, Top 25% Economics Departments (February 2013) and QS World University Rankings by Subject (2012).

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’.

Data Source: RePEc, Top 12.5% Asia, as of January 2013

After our post last summer about the trend for conferences and prizes aimed at young economists, several further events are coming up this year, which could be of interest to PhD students and young researchers. Some of these are specifically for students or junior academics whilst others offer financial support or prizes to those attending or presenting papers at the meeting.