In late 2022, the field of economics came under additional scrutiny for its unequal treatment of women. This article will examine the relative share of women in the field of economics, complementing the analysis of our survey data in the INOMICS Salary Report. This is helpful context for other discussions of gender discrimination in economics, as many statistics can be better understood after learning about the distribution of men and women in economics.

That gaps exist in economists’ pay and career attainment due to gender discrimination is not news. This article will discuss the findings of the 2022 INOMICS Salary Report as they relate to the gender pay gap in economics. Unless stated otherwise, the facts and figures in this article are taken from our 2022 survey data. INOMICS has previously published reports on the gender pay gap, but this is our deepest dive into the topic yet.

Over the years, Twitter has become a useful and prominent tool within the social media fabric, particularly for professionals looking to network and make connections. Many renowned economists use Twitter, and economics researchers often post research updates using the #EconTwitter hashtag.

Christmas is approaching. For many people this is a magical season, filled with songs and decorations, when you hope that all your wishes come true. Others consider Christmas to be a stressful time when you need to rush around to get presents for all your friends and family.

The holiday season is coming and Christmas is just around the corner. If you want to avoid buying presents for the holidays in a panic, you had better get to planning the gifts you'll be giving.

In late August 2022, US President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by announcing that the government would be providing US citizens with student loan debt-relief. US citizens can apply for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation via this loan forgiveness program. On October 17th, 2022, the US Department of Education opened up applications on StudentAid.gov.

The prestigious 2022 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, better known as the Nobel Prize for Economics, has been awarded to three American economists: Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, and Philip H. Dybvig. The prize, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was given to these economists for their contributions to “research on banks and financial crises”. The Prize notes that these three economists laid the groundwork for this research in the early 1980s.

The following article first appeared in the INOMICS Handbook 2022. Download the INOMICS Handbook Professor Marcel Fratzscher, esteemed macroeconomist and president of the DIW Berlin, once again asks questions about economics and life in general to a peer in the 2022 edition of the INOMICS Handbook Questionnaire. This time, he has the pleasure of being joined by renowned economic historian Adam Tooze, who generously agreed to take the hot seat in this exchange. Thus, the back-and-forth has been dubbed Fratzscher vs. Tooze, as is tradition. What follows is a dive into the beauty of wild places, the gender bias still present in economics, the link between policy makers and central banks, the limits of the search for perfect causality in the social sciences, and even more. Tooze’s perspective is unique and fresh, and is sure to be an interesting read you won’t want to miss.

Klaus Teuber’s Settlers of Catan is a popular board game that has become a mainstay of friendly gatherings across the globe. For the uninitiated, in Catan up to 4 players compete to be the first one with 10 victory points. Points are gained by building houses (“settlements”), cities, and roads on a heretofore unsettled island rife with natural resources. Catan has nearly limitless replay value - with 3,695,814,682,560,000 (over 3 quadrillion!) different unique board layouts using just the base rules. Chances are, you’ve heard of Catan even if you don’t particularly love board games.

The following article first appeared in the INOMICS Handbook 2021. Download the INOMICS Handbook On a visit to the London School of Economics in November 2008, the Queen asked her hosts why no one had seen the financial crisis coming. It took the professors nine months to come up with an excuse, put forth in a letter in July 2009:

Now in their sixth year, the INOMICS Awards remain unique in their celebration of institutions committed to the career development of economists worldwide.

For as long as we can remember, Mother Nature has been serving mankind as our major root source of livelihood. From the land that provides the nutrients for our crops, to the stone for our roads and buildings, to the oil for transport in our globalized world, we rely on these natural resources to maintain our modern way of life.

Humanity’s evolving nature has propelled it up the food chain, from prey to planetary predator. Just 60,000 years ago, homo sapiens roamed the earth, insignificant and insecure, their existence of little consequence. Life, as Thomas Hobbes put it, was ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. Fast forward to the present and man’s mark is unmistakable, the dawn of the ‘anthropocene’ testament to mesmerizing advances in technology - and a masochistic disregard for our ecosystems.

Production is interaction of man and nature  Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation

A historic tragedy like the war in Ukraine calls for historic measures of outreach and solidarity. There is an urgent demand for humanitarian aid and safe passage for the hundreds of thousands of refugees already created by the war. This includes thousands of students at Ukranian universities who have had to flee the conflict.

​Supply-side economics. Since its conception in the 1970s, debating its merits – or lack thereof – has been at the heart of political discourse, demarcating Republican from Democrat, Tory loyalist from Labour devotee, and informing not just an economic outlook, but a world view. 

Economics isn't something that can only be learned from degree programs, books or journals. As an important part of modern life, there are also a number of great movies about economic themes. From the 2008 financial crisis to the formation of game theory, movies have documented a variety of subjects that will be of interest to economists. Next time you're sitting down for movie night, try one of these 10 films that economists will love.

Even before COVID-19, students across the world face a mental health crisis of unprecedented proportions. Columnist James Matthew Alston investigated the phenomenon, looking particularly at university responses - his conclusions made for tough reading. Many institutions are overwhelmed, their mental health services ill-equipped to cope with the growing demand. Consequently, students are often left untreated in precarious states of mental health – an unsustainable situation that, as the statistics show, can end tragically.

The following article is an analysis of data taken from the INOMICS Salary Report 2020/21 - which is available to download in full here. Specifically, this article looks at the average salaries of economists around the world working in academia, the public sector and the private sector. It is the first instalment in a series of insights handling the Report’s findings.

'The greatest science policy failure for a generation’ is how the editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, described the UK’s COVID response last June. It was a widely shared sentiment  – made credible by the UK having one of the highest death rates in the western world. Fast forward to the present, and the government has finally claimed a ‘much needed win’ – a big one, too. Its vaccination programme has been rolled out with remarkable swiftness, and the country’s vulnerable populations are well on their way to inoculation. Commentators of every stripe have taken note.

The internet has given us many things: unlimited information, ever-expanding interconnection, myriad means of procrastination - in some places it’s even helped birth democracy. But as one hand giveth, the other, as is often the case, taketh away. And in the UK, it looks like the gift of online shopping may come at the expense of our high streets - and the thousands of livelihoods they maintain.

​Development aid: what is it good for? Well, according to much research the answer may well be absolutely nothing. In fact, it may well be worse than nothing. When judged against its aim of ‘instigating economic development and alleviating poverty’, its record is so dismal it looks as though aid actually hinders the achievement of its own stated goals. And the curious thing is this seems to be something of an open secret. Even to an untrained eye the big numbers pertaining to development aid don’t look right. Take Africa, for example. Over $1 trillion dollars has been pumped into the continent in the last 50 years, and how much has it benefited? How many African countries are actually in a better condition now than they were before receiving aid?

Few would contest it has been the ideology of our political age. Ever since the 1980s, it has dominated western politics, underpinning governance, influencing culture, and leaving its indelible mark across society. During this time its core tenets were rarely challenged and only its peripheral aspects tweaked. The 2008 financial crash, however, changed this, shaking confidence in an ideology whose name, up until that point, was rarely ever spoken. With the loss of savings, skyrocketing inequality and falling living standards that followed, people wanted answers and began to question the system that had facilitated such a disaster.

2021 began not only with an understanding that COVID-19 restrictions would likely continue for some time, but that the effects of Brexit – Great Britain leaving European Union – would also start to be felt. That Brexit would bring about changes to the UK/EU border was known for months. And yet, when it happened, most of the carriers and state institutions were not ready, creating (or rather, extending) the chaos in ports and near the Eurotunnel.