No 150: Help with New Economics Words

ONE difficulty with studying economics is that there are so many new words to learn.

It is sometimes useful then, to have access to dictionaries which give you the meaning of these words.

There are many available on the internet. Some start with basic economics terms, others are for advanced students.

My advice if you don't know a word is look in more than one site, because you might find the way a word is described in one place is easier for you to understand than in another.

Here is a guide to some economic glossaries I think are useful:

1) Bized economics glossary - this is good place to start since it is written for A-level students.

2) The Economist magazine's glossary - from, of course, the best magazine in the world, which, of course, you are all reading every week. It is written for eductaed people who may not have studied economics, so should be quite easy for you to understand.....

3) AMOS web glossary - size is the advantage of this one, with over 3000 economics terms discussed. It is from the USA, so beware of some words which are different from those we use in the UK.

4) Dr T's Economic Glossary - written by a university teacher, this uses advanced language to describe the economic ideas you may already know. Better for A2 students than AS.

5) John B. Taylor's Principles of Macroeconomics - very advanced;good for those of you who really want to challenge your understanding.

6) The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics - as the title suggests, not so much a dictionary as a series of short essays. Very interesting, but be aware that there is a bias to the writers of these essays - they are Austrian School economists (put very simply, very much in favour of the free market and against government).

If you want to buy an economics dictionary, this old one is still one of the most excellent available. I have a copy so if you'd like to have a look, just ask.....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everymans-Dictionary-Economics-Collected-Arthur/dp/0865975523/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286971170&sr=1-5

No 148: Possible reading for students wanting to study economics at university

SOME students have been asking me about economics books they can read in order to help their university applications.

Here are some recommendations:

1. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

This is a book about "behaviourial economics", the use of experiments and theories from psychology to better understand economic behaviour. This book challenges traditional economic ideas about how we make economic decisions. It's also very funny!













2. Ship of Fools by Fintan O'Toole

This book discusses the rise and fall of the Irish economy over the 1990s and 2000s. The country was praised around the world as the best example of how deregulation, low taxes and foreign investment could led to very high growth rates. Before it all went spectacularly wrong during the Credit Crunch. It's GDP has fallen by 14% between 2008 to 2010, and has the world's highest debt to other countries - equivalent to 811% of GDP. This book argues the stupidity and greed of Ireland's politicians and business leaders caused this.






3. The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What It Means by Vince Cable

Vince Cable is currently the Miinster for Trade in the UK government. He was one of the few people to warn about the problems that eventually dragged this country into the Credit Crunch. This is a short and readable account of those events.












4. The Death of Economics by Paul Ormerod

This book was written some time ago, but is still excellent. It is good for those students who also know some maths. The central idea of the book is how the maths and stats used in making economic forecasts is wrong, and how this has led to completely wrong decisions and theories.










If you would like some more suggestions, here is a longer list from tutor2u:

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/revised-reading-list-for-economists-post-as-papers/#extended

No 143: Reading for Advanced Students of Economics

THE three words you are going to hear again and again in A2 Economics class will be:

do more reading

do more reading

do more reading

do more reading

do more reading

do more reading

Another thing to say about the A2 year is

students who begin the year by working hard usually finish it working hard

students who begin the year by not working hard................

You can finish it!

So, any one want to do more reading now and start working hard even before the A2 year begins?

If you do, here is a link to a tutor2u reading list of 12 online economics articles, "designed to take Year 12  (i.e. A2) economists into interesting areas of recent research in economics, management and the application of economic ideas ... with one eye on strengthening their UCAS application":

tutor2uarticlelist

.

No 142: Statistical Analysis of Exam Performance

I WANTED to wait for a few days until you have all had time to digest your exam results before I gave you my comments.

Of course every student is interested in his or her own performance, and I am very sorry if you were disappointed with your results.

However, as you can see in the graph below, as a group in both A2 and AS Economics you did significantly better than the national average.



(You've also done better than the Bellerbys' averages of 56% B or above for AS, and 63% for A2.)

Many congratulations on this group performance.

I think you should be especially proud since these were results in which you bettered students who have English as their native language.

P.S. If you are disappointed with your results, please e-mail me if I can help in any way.

No 138: How the internet works

MAKEUSEOF.COM is an excellent site for finding all kinds of internet tools and apps.

I recommend subscribing to their daily e-mail newsletter.

Although it's not about economics, I think this infographic of theirs is quite interesting:


[Via: Online Schools]

No 134: University Economics Lecture Notes and Assignments

HERE'S a website by the above famous American university that has links to all of their economics courses, with lots of useful lecture notes and assignments.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/

Could be useful to those of you going to study economics at university...

No 78: Big Changes in UK Universities - VERY IMPORTANT STORY!!

UK UNIVERSITIES are going to have their government funding cut by 5%. As this article from the Guardian reports,

"Universities across the country are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, the Guardian has learned.

Other plans include using post-graduates rather than professors for teaching and the delay of major building projects.

The cuts are being put in place to cope with the announcement last week by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) that £449m – equivalent to more than a 5% reduction nationally – would be stripped out of university budgets.

The University and College Union (UCU) believes that more than 15,000 posts – the majority academic – could disappear in the next few years."

There are 2 issues to look at here:

1) What will be the economic effects of the cut in funding?
2) How will this affect Bellerbys' students (and teachers!)?

As you probably know, university education is usually said to create a large number of social benefits: private benefits to the students who attend, and many external benefits to wider society - more productive workers, higher earners who pay more tax, improved research and development, etc.. Therefore such a cut in funding will probably reduce these benefits.

For example, the newpaper states that, "Teesside University is scrapping £2m worth of scholarships and bursaries that would have helped poorer students". More generally, "student/lecturer ratios are expected to rise, with more institutions using postgraduates and short term staff filling in for professors made redundant".

This all comes at a time when university places are in high demand. Many young adults who would normally want to work are applying  to university, being unable to find jobs in the current economic climate. Therefore, UCAS is going to announce


record numbers of applications for places this autumn. It is expected that as many as 300,000 applicants will be turned away.

By now you may be feeling worried. Don't panic though, this might not be as bad for you as it seems.

Firstly, somewhere between 90 and 150 thousand students didn't get a place last year either. Additionally, due to the problems with getting work described above, many of the applicants this year might not be very good students anyway.

True, this will mean that, according to university principals, "higher exam pass marks will be required to win a place at university". As I always say, you will have to work hard to go to one of my country's fine universities.

However, it is agreed that these cuts mean that universities "expect to become even more reliant on income from higher, overseas student fees", that is YOU!

When universities look at applications, they notice if the student is British or from overseas. I would not be surprised if students from abroad are given better offers in the future as universities look to them to provide more funds.

That could mean more opportunties for you, and more work for me, as more overseas students decide to come to Bellerbys and UK universities.

How do I feel about this? Well, to be honest, part of me is sad, as much as  I like working with you all.

I come from a working class family and was the first member of my family to ever to go to university. It would be a shame if other people from backgrounds similar to mine do not get the chance of a university education.

The government claims that such cuts are necessary in order to save money in the terrible economic situation caused by the credit crunch. However, as the article notes, in the USA "President Obama this week proposed a 31% increase in education spending for next year in order to combat unemployment and develop skills".