Can economics ever be ethical? This might sound like a strange question to an economist who focuses on collecting data, analysing it, and using that data to make predictions. What ethical considerations could be raised here? What do abstract theories of ethics have to do with cold, hard economic facts? Today we'll look at some of the ways that economics interacts with the topic of ethics.

“I am an economist,” I once proudly mentioned at a party, in a round of small talk. “Oh, so you do a lot of money counting and financial reporting?” was the reply I heard, like so many economics graduates before me. “Nah, let’s leave that to the business and finance professionals,” I answered. But what do real economists do exactly?

The following is an analysis of data taken from the INOMICS Salary Report 2018 - downloadable for registered users here. Specifically, it looks at the average salaries of economists working in academia and the private sector according to their level of seniority. It is the third instalment in a series of insights handling the Report’s findings. The first two can be found in our insights section.

In recent times, debates on gender inequality among researchers at universities have emerged, in particular in economics. Even though leading academic societies have addressed these issues already for many years – for example, the American Economic Association has run the “Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession” (CSWEP) since 1971, and the European Economic Association established its “Standing Committee on Women in Economics” (WinE) in 2003 – they appear to be persistent.

'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.

​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. 

Every year thousands of economics students decide to continue education, either straight away after graduation or after a year or two of “real world” work experience. Often at this point comes the question: should I pursue a PhD or enroll in a Master of Business Administration program?

Are you studying health economics, or thinking about studying it at university? If so, you might want to know what career options you could pursue your health economics degree. Recently we've been sharing a series of articles on top career paths for various specialisations within economics, and today we're looking at health. Read on for more information about where you could work with a degree in health economics.

So, you’re studying for your economics degree in the United States of America. It's going well, and you’re enjoying life in the USA, so much that you’re thinking about staying longer and looking for a job in the US.

One area of life that is greatly influenced by economics but you might not think of as a typical economics topic is sports and match betting. Gambling on sporting events is a huge international multimillion dollar industry covering gambling from traditional betting events like dog or horse races to modern betting outfits that let you place bets on everything from how many goals will be scored in a given match to which players will be picked for a draft. As betting on sports events is essentially an exercise in modelling and probability, we can use the lens of economics to understand more about how match betting works.

Finland is known around the globe for its progressive higher education culture that aims to cultivate a humane and globally-minded ‘next generation’. This is emphasis is especially present in the University of Tampere (UTA). UTA prides itself on providing a friendly environment for students to connect with their professors and even the administration, even as undergraduates.

In the collective consciousness, the economist exists as a middle-aged man, bespectacled and clad in a suit, whose unhealthy pallor betrays a hermit-like lifestyle led in the confines of a library. Of course, this image isn’t a particularly fair reflection of the discipline, or its practitioners. Some, for instance, will be aware that in the last few years a number of economists have experimented with contact lenses. Nevertheless, the stereotype remains instructive: the large majority of economists are men, and given the positions they hold, and influence they exert, such homogeneity is a cause for concern.

Although we’ve been told time and again that the pandemic doesn’t care about who you are, in reality it hasn’t affected everyone equally. Senior Editor William Pearse has already written about how COVID-19 has been harder on those from ethnic minorities and on poorer communities in the UK.

Although it is generally thought of mainly as a theoretical academic subject, economics has been a driving force in society for thousands of years. The exchange of money and the way that financial systems interact has lead to some of the most profound changes to the everyday lives of human beings across the planet. To illustrate how the practice of economics has changed the world, today we'll look at the role of economics in Western history from the 6th century BC era up to the present day.

Development economics is the branch of economics focused on understanding and promoting the development of low-income countries through economic growth and structural change. If you've been studying economics, you may have had the chance to specialise in development economics, or you may be thinking about doing so in the future. In the case, what career options are available in development economics, and what kind of skills do you need to get a job in this field? That's the question we're answering today, by showing you some of the top career paths in development economics.

Less than a year on from COVID’s genome sequencing, vaccination programs are being rolled out around the world. And while the pandemic is far from over, it would appear we’re approaching its endgame, arriving there faster than anyone dared hope. The previous fastest ever vaccine to be developed was for Mumps - and that took four years.

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.

Academia can be a tough environment for women to succeed in. In many departments, men outnumber women in the senior ranks and this can result in a variety of gender-based prejudices and problems that women have to navigate. Here are some tips for women working in male-dominated academic fields: