The line between business/finance and economic resources is often fuzzy. Business resources will be useful for some economic queries and vice versa.
ABI/Inform began in 1971 and is issued monthly. Covers both business and economics in some depth. Includes both abstracts and some full text from about 1000 periodicals.
EconLit began in 1969 and is issued quarterly. Indexes and abstracts about 400 economic periodicals an includes references from the Journal of Economic Literature and the Index of Economic Articles.
The Elgar Dictionary of Economic Quotations.
An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics: A Guide to Laws and Theorems Named after Economists edited by Julio Segura and Carlos Braun will answer quite a few questions, particularly be beginning students.
The International Bibliography of Economics began in 1952 and is issued annually. Sponsored by UNESCO, it is notable for its world-wide coverage and fairly substantial time lag. It is now part of the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
4anything.com has an economics site that contains useful current information on a few important categories. About.Com provides a more inclusive site with its About.com Guide to Economics. About.Com was formerly the MiningCompany.
Academic Info: Economics provides a selected list of links in a more restrained setting.
AmosWEB Economic Gloss.arama provides good, quick, and understandable definitions of many economic terms.
The Dismal Scientist is another solid comprehensive site. Content is quite current and usually easily understood. Professional and thoughtful. Well worth a visit.
eco5.com, issued by the European Business School, covers a wide variety of economic topics, including market overview, historical data and forecasts, and working papers and glossaries. Good job too with global and regional news.
Inomics: the Internet Site For Economists includes a good search engine and a directory of resources.
Ideas is the most comprehensive database on the Internet dedicated to economic literature. Over 200,000 items are available and about half are available in full-text. Research Papers in Economics is a decentralized, collaborative database of working papers, periodical articles, and software.
NABE, the National Association for Business Economics, provides acces to a variety of links, career guidance, and other information. Some links are to free content and some are to commercial services.
Resources for Economists on the Internet. Lists major topics. Includes an Economics Search Engine.
SmartEconomist.com provides access to recent news about business, finance, and economics.
VIBE Home includes about 1600 free English language sources.
The WWW Virtual Library for Economics is a good place to begin.
ArgMax: Economics News, Data, and Analysis provides an excellent one stop look at current economic news, data, and analysis.
SmartEconomist.com provides "insights into economics, finance, and business research. Some good coverage of the report literature.
Stat-scan is the EconData.Net monthly newsletter. Excellent coverage of current and interesting data with clear, helpful abstracts. Essential for any librarian working with economics. Free email subscription.
The U.S. Economy at a Glance provides six months of essential economic data in a very easily used format.
Vox provides access to European research-based policy analysis and commentary.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the U.S. central bank site.
Bureau of Economic Analysis includes links to national, industry, and regional economic data, and reports.
Bureau of Labor Statistics includes links to economic data with a focus on employment and wages, inflation and productivity data as well as worker safety and health.
Census Bureau Economic Programs provides access to the Bureau's economic indicator data.
Economic Statistics Briefing Room provides "easy access to current Federal economic indicators; it provides links to information produced by a number of Federal agencies."
Eurostat provides access to many European economic indicators.
FED 101 is an introduction to the Federal Reserve System for the layman. Available in Flash and html versions. Interesting and easy to understand.
FRASER is the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research. It contains a substantial collection of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents. FRED is the sister time-series database.
FRB Beige Book summarizes national economic conditions by the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco provides Fed in Print, a comprehensive index to Federal Reserve economic working papers.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis created an information site for students and teachers. The site also includes the International Economic Statistics Database. Look for Liber8 toward the bottom of the home page. Note that this is the Federal Reserve Bank for Tennessee. The FRED [Federal Reserve Economic Database, more than 3,000 economic time series, and Alfred [Archival Federal Reserve Economic Data] are also available here. Fraser [Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research] is also available. This is an essential site for economic data.
Econ 100 is the "international website for economics students."
The Economics Classroom is aimed at grades 9 -12. Free registration allows watching of informative workshops on basic topics.
The Federal Reserve Education site contains links to websites, resources and research materials, on-line learning, and access to publications and videos.
AmosWEB Gloss arama is a searchable database of more than 2000 economic terms and concepts. Also includes a quick look at the economics/business/finance news.
Harvard University Libraries [guides, social science, economics] have prepared several useful guides. MIT has an excellent series of guides on particular economics topics.
Krislyn's Strictly Business Sites: Economics provides good access to quality websites.
Social Science Libraries and Information Services Subject Guides: Economics by Yale University Libraries.
The Yale LibraryEconomics Subject Guide is another excellent site.
The Bank for International Settlements also has a good site.
Global Findata.com is another comprehensive source for global financial data.
Historical Statistics on Banking by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation contains information from 1934.
Qualisteam is a European banking and finance portal , but includes web sites world-wide.
The Conference Board WWW site provides information on about 250 economic indicators with an explanation of how they are created.
EconDash.com is not really comprehensive, but it does provide easily read charts on the main economic indicators as well as a good collection of selective links.
For those willing to use a hard copy source, the Economist Guide to Economic Indicators: Making Sense of Economics [5th edition] is reasonably comprehensive and quite useful.
The American Statistical Association offers B & E DataLinks for finance, macroeconomics, and labor and general economics. Links are annotated.
EconData.Net includes more than 300 links to regional economic and social data. Note too their excellent newsletter Stat-Scan that does a good good of identifying important new data on a variety of economic topics.
There is a similar site for the Statistical Office of the European Communities.
EconoMagic.Com provides a similar service for a large number of historical time series. Note how data are displayed and the printing options.
FreeLunch.com provides quick, easy access to economic, demographic, and financial data. Includes free and premium data. Searches may be limited to free data.
Maryland University Libraries, in their subject guide series, offer a helpful guide to Sources for International Statistics. Many of these sources are helpful for economic statistics.
The National Bureau of Economic Research provides links to many links to macroeconomic and industry data.
The United Nations InfoNation web site allows you to compare statistical data for U.N. members. Other U.N. agencies that issue economic statistics include the International Trade Center (World Trade organization), the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.
The Economic Policy Institute is a not-for-profit and non-partisan research institute. Substantial content, including some useful technical reports.
WebFeatures, found at the Economic Policy Institute web site contains public opinion data related to current economic issues.
Archive for the History of Economic Thought contains a variety of texts useful to students. Limited by author access. Links to other economic history sites.
EH.Net provides an economic history services website with a variety of useful features including "how much is that?" and economic history in the popular press.
Economic History Resources, "How Much Is That" answers questions about changing purchasing power over the years.
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco presents Great Economists and Their Times, a basic history of economic thought from 1730 to 1990. There is a quiz to test your knowledge. You may also wish to visit the the Gallery of Economists.
Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History provides students and lay people with authoritative articles on a variety of topics.
Schools of Thought provides brief overviews of economic schools of thought beginning with the schools of political economy and ending with thematic schools.
*1. For the Thursday morning reference update meeting, you have been asked to introduce economic indicators. Which guides or handbooks can you find at your local research library that introduce and explain economic indicators? Which was most useful for you? [If no research library, do the same with authoritative websites.] What are economic indicators and how important are they for economists? What source would you suggest for a student [add [add [particulars] who wishes to learn about economic indicators? Why?
2. A community college student taking an introductory economics course has been asked to prepare a short paper on Structural unemployment. Which sources would be best?
3. A public library patron has found a reference to "Gresham's Law" and its use in economics. Most useful source?
4. Agricultural economics is an important but often overlooked part of the discipline, especially since it is often isolated in colleges of agriculture. Can you find three to five comprehensive sources of agricultural economic data? Provide brief, helpful characterizations.
5. The Cambridge histories have quite a good reputation for thoughtful, thorough coverage of various historical topics. Evaluate the Cambridge Economic History of the United States considering ease of use, audience, and similar works. Is this really a reference work? Should it be in the Reference Department or in the stacks as a circulating item?
6. A user has a reference to the Regional Economic Information System or REIS from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. What can you find out?
7. A patron has an incomplete reference to The National Bureau of Economic Research . Is this a government agency? What can you find out about this site and this organization? OR
8. A patron has an incomplete reference to the Conference Board. What can you find out about this organization? How important might it be for the student interested in economics?
9. Characterize the Economic Literature Index. Complete a search or two on a topic of your choice. Comment on ease of use.
10. A patron earned an annual salary of $6,500 in 1972. How much would that be worth today? Which sources are most useful?
11 In selecting content for the economics section of the library's social science web pages for a library instruction class, you want to emphasize the important domestic economic policy role of the Federal Reserve Banks . What does the Fed do? Which websites would be particularly useful?
12. An undergraduate student has a list of economic phrases that must be defined. Three items on her list are: "face value," "recessionary gap," and "value." Which economic dictionaries provide the best definitions of these phrases?
13. A student [add level] must write a paper on trends in defined benefit pensions. Using appropriate resources what can you find? Most useful source?
14. A patron [add level] needs to learn more about a currently published economist named Joseph Stiglitz. What can you find? Which sources are most useful?
15. A patron is interested in United States temporary employment statistics over the last 10 years. In particular, she wants to know if more adults are being forced in to temporary employment. Where might you find an answer?
16. A patron, interested in current affairs, needs to know more about the gross national product of Mexico, especially for the last three years. Results? Most useful source?
17. A patron at the public library has read an article claiming that, adjusted for inflation, the income of average American families has declined notably in the last 10 years. She wants to find statistics to support or reject this argument. Where would you go? Best source?
18. Time series are especially important in economic research. Explain what time series are and why they are important. Include a good example.
19. The United Nations and its specialized agencies produce a wide variety of statistical products. Identify and describe two UN agency statistical sources likely to be useful for undergraduate economics students..
20. A patron has a reference to OECD. What is it? What does it do? How might it be useful for the economics student?
21. Forecasting is particularly important in economics. You have been asked to help identify U.S. organizations involved in economic forecasting, both governmental and non-governmental. Useful sources?
22. A patron is interested in information about the Social Security changes proposed by the Bush administration. In particular, she wonders what economists have said. What sources might be helpful?
23. Some economists are concerned with commodities and commodity markets. You have been told that the CRB Commodity Yearbook is the single best reference source for this topic. Characterize this source, consider ease of use, audience, and similar works.
24. A business person has appeared at the public library reference desk and wishes to see authoritative forecasts for inflation for the year 2008 in the U.S. What can you find?
25. A middle school public school teacher would like to introduce a few basic economic principles to middle school youngsters. Can you find websites that would be useful for this purpose? Do evaluate critically.
Last major revision: August, 2007.
