In recent months the INOMICS blog has featured a series of posts about rankings of departments and universities. Traditionally, ranking has practically been an academic discipline in itself, with big names like QS, the Times Newspaper and in Economics the citation listings compiled by REPEC, dominating the field. However a trend towards a kind of “crowd-sourcing” of ranking has started to appear.

We are sad to share the loss of a great economist yesterday. Robert Fogel, Nobel Laureate (1993, with Douglass North) passed away yesterday at the age of 86. He was a Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Founding Director of the Center for Population Economics.

There exist two sides to every argument; in this one we have on one side a utopian world where everyone is equal and on the other a world where inhabitants don’t want to share what they’ve earned (presumably) by persistence and hard work with others and keep it for themselves. Herein lie the issues of inequality and the question of welfare and income redistribution. There are debates at every level of society, government and especially amongst economists as to where this problem comes from and how to tackle it.

 Job market seasons vary by country and industry, but summer and Christmas time generally stand out as quiet seasons. Often, it causes frustration for fresh graduates, who are exiting universities at both of those times. If some will be lucky enough to have an offer in their hands before the graduation party, more will still be uncertain about their start moving into professional life.

Less than a decade ago student relied on word of mouth and the information available in their universities when choosing a Masters Program. Today, internet-based searching is the foremost source of advice when it comes to exploring opportunities for postgraduate education. Students who are interested in studying abroad in particular turn to search engines and course-listing platforms in their search, and often make their decisions based on the information presented online.

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

For the last couple of years we have been hearing repeated, if sporadic ‘rumours’ about the soon-to-be recovery. Different economists have different views on this, and below you can find a list of up-to-date comments about the prospects for the near future, and conferences which are open for registration if you have ideas on this topic to tell the world about. Blogs:

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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 Fosslien Have 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.

We asked 340 economists [in academia] which social networks they prefer to use and how. Based on our observations and years of experience with social media, we outline how institutions can use social networks for better communication.

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. If you know and use other apps, which we haven’t featured here, please let us know in the comments and we will be happy to add them!

How to Optimize Your Summer School Promotion on INOMICS With the festive period over, now is the season to find Summer Schools on INOMICS. Each year we see a marked increase between January and May in the number of visitors navigating on the INOMICS site to the "Summer Schools" sub-category.

 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! 1. Supply and Demand for New Ph.D’s in Economics Based on the Survey of the labor market for new Ph.D hires in economics 2011-2012

Sources: Christmas Spending Survey 2012, Deloitte; NRF’s Holiday Survival Kit  (US only); HSBC Christmas Spending Survey 2012 (UK only) The Christmas Season is probably the heaviest burden for family budgets among all the annual holidays, and the best business opportunity for retailers. In the US alone estimations of spending on Christmas-related items hit $586.1 billion in 2012.

 At the start of the 2012/13 academic year, INOMICS was proud to launch a new search function, incorporating new technology and features to help visitors to the INOMICS site filter through the content online, and find precisely what they are looking for. Uptake of the New Search Function

INOMICS continues and expands its working partnership with the European Regional Scienc Association (ERSA) into 2013. The European Regional Science Association (ERSA) is the supranational grouping of national regional science associations across Europe. Members are academics, policy professionals and researchers interested in spatial economics and planning, regional and local development and related issues. They are drawn largely from the disciplines of economics, geography and urban planning.

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! We are currently sitting a month and a half out from one of, if not the largest economics conferences. The AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting 2013 is taking place from January 4-6, 2013 in San Diego, California with over 10,000 academics to gather, present, discuss, and socialize over the weekend.

Halloween is a highly commercialized holiday in the US, with people of all ages celebrating and spending. Expected Halloween spending of US consumers in 2012 almost equals government expenditures of Kenya. According to surveys conducted annually by the National Retail Federation, in last five years total spending on Halloween in the US grew from $4.96 billion in 2006 to an expected $8 billion in 2012. After a significant drop in spending in 2009, consumers managed to bring it back up to the level of a previous year in 2010.

Google’s California headquarters is one of the more unusual places where you might find economists hard at work. While economists did not have a place at Google when it launched in 1998, by 2002 Google had begun to hire economists in advisory roles as the demand for Google’s ad space grew in size and complexity.

“You can’t be an economist without noticing all the interesting things about how the economy works, it is natural to be interested in it and I have had the privilege to be able to study it” said Alvin A. Roth answering questions during the unexpected 4am call from Sweden. Together with Lloyd S.