Economic links around the web
As an economics student most of us are already familiar with websites such as The Economist, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the business section of The Age (or similarly Australian Financial Review, Business Spectator and yahoo finance). The benefits of reading business related news/content allows us to procrastinate and supplement our university education at the same time. It helps us become more aware of ongoing economic issues around the world and to be more connected to reality rather than the realms of the classroom and textbook economics. The intention of this article is to highlight some of the other content and hidden gems out there on the web that could be of interest to dedicated economics students.
For Australian websites, the first I would like to highlight is Macrobusiness, most of you have probably seen one or two of their articles in the business section of the age. However if you visit the website you will find a lot more in-depth coverage on the Australian economy and the financial markets. Macrobusiness provides a good daily roundup of relevant news to the Australian economy, and also posts particularly interesting economic analysis and commentary. The Conversation is also a good site to visit, due to its diverse range of analysis and commentary on politics, business and economics, science, education and health. In terms of economics, it is more oriented towards political economics and debates. Coreconomics whose contributors are mostly Australian economic academics might be of interest to some readers out there. This website provides economic commentary not only on Australia but also global economic issues. ESSA is similar to Coreconomics in that it does not have a daily business news coverage section on the websites, and is mostly made up of economic op-ed posts.
Within economics there are plenty of prominent economists and leading experts to follow, the Economists Club in Project Syndicate is a one stop shop for economic commentary and analysis from these well known economists. I personally follow Nouriel Roubini, Robert J. Shiller, Jeffrey Sachs and Ian Bremmer. For economic developments in the Euro-Zone, Martin Wolf of Financial Times is the man to turn to. Although it requires free registration on FT.com and a limit of 8 articles a month, it is worth the effort to get a decent grasp of the Euro-crisis. Also check out Vox for European focused economics articles.
Tired of reading all day? I highly recommend Daniel Altman Chief Economist of Big Think. Each video is about 2 minutes long, packed full of economic analysis and commentary answering the big questions in economics. ReutersTV is a Youtube channel which provides general business news, but also a lot of economic debates and commentary from prominent economists. The Economist also has its own Youtube channel, so be sure to also check that one out.
Some miscellaneous but also interesting links include Freakonomics, which discusses applied economics to everyday life. The Institute for New Economic Thinking discusses new developments within the economics field. TradingEconomics is a hidden gem I recommend and use a lot, this website provides economic data on many countries around the world for figures such as nominal GDP, unemployment rate, debt-GDP ratios and others in one big table for you to compare and analyse. You can sort the countries by certain criteria such as GDP per capita or inflation for instance, and it also has historical charts which are customisable to the time period you want. Be sure to click the links of the individual country to bring up more interesting data.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of quality economic commentary and content students should check out.
Feel free to post links to any hidden gems you find on your encounters to procrastination land in the comments section below!