1 Economics 195 Using Economic Data in Policy Analysis Professor Woolf Fall 2011 General Information: Phone: 656-0190 Office: 339 Old Mill Email: [email protected] Class meeting time: MWF 10:40 – 11:30 Room 234 Hills Office Hours: MWF 2:00 – 4:00. You do not need an appointment to see me during my scheduled office hours. Books: Required: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte (Graphic Press), Economical Writing, by Deirdre McCloskey (Waveland Press) Description: This course is designed to provide students with basic skills relating to how to find, understand, use, and communicate data. It is not a statistics class, nor a substitute for a statistics class. It is a class in which you will learn how to locate and use data, and how to avoid misuse of data. Communication skills are, and will be, an increasingly important part of anyone’s professional life. This class will focus on communicating information about the economy in ways that use your skills and background in economics. To that end, it will require the integration of economic theory, statistics, numbers, graphs, writing, and oral presentation. The focus of the course will be on using data to communicate and analyze economic problems and policy solutions. The course assumes you know how to navigate the web, how to manipulate data in Excel spreadsheets, use Excel to create graphs, and basic knowledge of Powerpoint. It also assumes you know, understand, and can use basic English language writing and speaking skills. What you should know already how to do in Excel: - Perform mathematical operations and sorting on a column of numbers - Cut, copy, paste - Create and edit graphs. We will be spending a lot of time on this so you should be proficient at this or be willing to spend a lot of time on your own getting better. - Change formatting options in spreadsheets and graphs What you should be able to do in Word: - Create a document - Insert tables and graphs into the document and format them and the document appropriately2 You will also need to be able to download data from an internet site to a spreadsheet. Here is a guide: 1. Some sites have it built in, so just click. For example, the Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes the GDP data. On the BEA site, you can directly download real and nominal GDP into a spreadsheet: From this page http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp Download Current-dollar and “real” GDP by clicking and the spreadsheet automatically opens. 2. Sometimes a website will only give you data that looks a little like a spreadsheet. Take, for example, a page like this: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032010/faminc/new07_000.htm You can easily put this data into a spreadsheet without entering all the numbers by hand. Excel has a function tab called Data (Note that I am using Windows Excel in Microsoft Office 2007; the name of this and other features in other versions of Excel may vary, although the functionality will be the same). Open a blank spreadsheet and click on Data, then From Web, and type in the URL (or, much easier, copy and paste it) into the address box that appears and click Go. Click on the yellow arrow where the data you are looking for begin, then Import, and you have the data in your spreadsheet. You will probably need to do some formatting to make it look nice. Grading: Class participation and activities, including quizzes 10% Homework/short papers (I drop the two lowest scores) 60% Midterm and final, equally weighted 30% Data Sources: Best single source is Resources for Economists on the internet http://rfe.org (click on the data link) Census Bureau www.census.gov Lots of economic and demographic data from decennial censuses and surveys; a lot more information than you might think; also some international data Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov Data on labor markets, prices, productivity, and more Bureau of Economic Analysis www.bea.gov GDP, state and local income, international Statistical Abstract of the United States http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/ data on everything from soup to nuts Budget of the United States Main Page http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/ Historical Tables http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/hist.html Economic Report of the President http://www.gpoaccess.gov/eop/ data and good narrative on policy issues World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/ international data, and not just economic Historical Statistics of the United States http://hsus.cambridge.org/HSUSWeb/HSUSEntryServlet3 FRED, the data series maintained by the St. Louis Fed. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ Just about every piece of data published by the U.S. Government. Once you figure out how to use it, it is a great resource. I recommend that you look at some economics blogs to enhance your understanding of what’s going on in the economic world around you. Some of my favorites are Marginal Revolution www.marginalrevolution.com One of the most-visited economics blogs with all sorts of links, not just economics. Econbrowser www.econbrowser.com James Hamilton, a macroeconomist at the UCSD who specializes in oil and energy issues with timely macro and energy discussion. Greg Mankiw’s blog www.gregmankiw.blogspot.com Mankiw, a Harvard economist, uses this blog for his classes. Calculated Risk www.calculatedriskblog.com Bill McBride, who writes this, called the housing bubble well before most other people. His blog is very good on current statistics and his graphs (and graph gallery) are excellent. A good way to keep up on the macroeconomy. Conversable Economist http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/ Timothy Taylor, who teaches at Macalaster College and edits The Journal of Economic Perspectives writes this very readable blog looking at and summarizing interesting economic papers and current policy issues. Vermont Tiger www.vermonttiger.com I blog I contribute to about Vermont policy issues. Course Schedule and Topics: Note for each section, you will be responsible for reading and being prepared to discuss the most recent data, news releases, and press analyses of the data under discussion. To that end, you should be reading, on a daily basis, The Wall Street Journal, NY Times (especially the business section), and/or The Economist. Other readings will be provided during the semester.