A Guide for Econ Major Undergraduate Students

Guanzhong Chen
Table of Contents:

I. General Information
Contents and material
Target audience
Assumption of the guide
Organization
Tips and Hints

II. Resources
FRED Economic Data
Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve System
International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
World Bank Open Data
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
General Information

Contents and Material

This guide contains eight essential websites for econ majored students, including databases,
journal, periodical index and online encyclopedia. Economics is a science involving calculating
dynamic data and uncertainties. These recommended websites provides real-time data, policy
news and complementary reading material which could help your learning and researching.

Target Audience
This guide is mainly focuses on economics majored juniors and seniors, or, students currently
taking or have completed at least one 300/400 level economics course in Penn State. However,
freshmen, sophomores and whoever interested in economics related fields may also find this
guide useful. Websites listed in the guide are selected by the author of this guide based on his
personal experience and recommendations from his professors.

Assumption of the Guide

For maximizing the usefulness of this guide, the audiences are assumed complete Econ 102
(Introductory Microeconomic Analysis and Policy), Econ 104 (Introductory Macroeconomic
Analysis and Policy) and Econ 106 (Statistical Foundations for Econometrics). These courses are
cover all of the fundamental economic concepts and depict an image about what is economics,
such as what economists are caring about and how trade can make people better off or worse
off.

Organization
This guide is organized based on the learning process of undergraduate economics studying.
The first part in Internet Resources section is information about economics department, where
you can get know about this major and econ courses. The second part is an online
encyclopedia which contains detailed explanation about economic terminologies written by
professionals. The third part is a collection of frequently used databases, and, the last part is
primary sources and periodical index which are helpful for researching.

Tips and Hints

Each resource is accompanied with several tips. These tips are mainly about how to use certain
resource, but tips may also cover external information such as how to access Wall Street
Journal with lower price and how to cancel your subscription.
Economics Researching Resources:

FRED Economic Data (FRED)

Website Link: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

Abstracts:
Generally, anticipating uncertainties and analyzing market trend is impossible without real-time
data. FRED offers you with real-time data for all economic indexes covered in lectures and
textbooks for undergraduate students, including CPI, GDP, effective federal funds rate and
more. This site will be firstly introduced in some 300 level econ courses, because you are start
applying concepts and models on problems in reality.

Tips and Hints:

1. After searching any keyword, you can edit charts on this page by clicking Edit Graph at
upper right corner. By using this tool, students can customize their data by transforming
one or more time series or combining one or more series by writing a custom
formula.You can also change frequency, which refers to how often data are collected
into time series and units.

2. Adjusting time period helps you locate specific data more efficiently. Some economic
indexes are used frequently, but they have been studied and monitored for over a
century so there are colossal amount of data have been recorded. For example, CPI is
an index evaluate households expenditures and indicating inflations. It is hard to find out
last Septembers CPI from data collected from January 1947. But if we shorten the time
period from January 2016 to December 2016, this searching process will be simplified
notably.

3. Using tags to find related data series conveniently. We can find relating information
about a chart by scrolling down the result page, such as references, releasing date and
tags. A tag covers many terms with similarity or in the same topic. Using tags wisely
could help you expand your researching resources in a relatively short time.
Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve System (FED)
Website link: https://www.federalreserve.gov/

Abstracts:
FED is an indispensable tool when you studying macroeconomics and the U.S. financial and
monetary policies. The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States, which
performs five general functions to adjust and regulate the U.S. economy. Learning federal
monetary policies is a necessary step to analyze and study macroeconomics. For example,
stabilizing the U.S. bonds market is challenging, the central bank will adjust existed policies and
promote new policies frequently, so it is beneficial to check FED regularly for economics
researching.

Tips and Hints:

1. Data are categorized by the Federal Banks ten purposes. Besides, in each data page,
there is a subcategory bar located below the title, representing related information. You
are able to use this bar to find out release dates and detailed explanatory information of
data.

2. FED has a Q&A section, in where the central bank officers would like to answer your
questions if you post your problems online.

3. The news about policy, including declared policies and concepts still under discussion,
are listed in News and Monetary Policy sections on the home page.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
Website links: https://www.wsj.com/

Abstracts:
WSJ is Penn State Econ department required reading material, passengers from WSJ are
directly used in homeworks and exams in 300 level Econ course. WSJ is a U.S. business-
focused, international-issued newspaper, reporting business news daily. It supported by Econ
department not only because WSJ is a wide-known, accessible newspaper but also it publishing
relatively objective opinions about worldwide business events.

Tips and Hints:

1. WSJ requires paying subscription fee before reading the full passages. Fortunately,
discounts are frequently offered for college students. Such as, WSJ can be subscribed
by $15 for 15 weeks during the back-to-school season. So, if youre a rational consumer,
you should ask your professor for coupon codes before your subscribtion.

2. Most of charts on WSJ can be interacted with readers, this feature may useful when you
need a precise look of data. For example, Dow Jones Industrial Average index chart
shows real-time data and if you move your mouse on the chart, history of data which
collected every five minutes will appear.
International Monetary Fund eLibrary (IMF)
Website link: http://www.elibrary.imf.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/?redirect=true

Abstracts:
IMF eLibrary is where you can access plenty of high quality academic journals for your
research. IMF is an organization consisted by 189 countries, cooperating for stabilize global
monetary environment and facilitate international trade. Therefore, IMF is the one of
international organizations play meaningful role on U.S. domestic and international trade. When
you are studying political economy, such as taking Econ 413(Economic Growth and the
Challenge of World Poverty ), these contents are great complementary readings and
researching resources.

Tips and Hints:

1. Free primary resources can be accessed by clicking Research and data buttons on
upper left corner. IMF offers research papers cover various topic including labor
economics, regional economics report,commodity price and much more. All of these
treasures can be reviewed online and cited freely. Besides, some exam questions also
quotes information from IMF as well. Therefore, checking research results occasionally
will absolutely help your learning.

2. Multimedia contents on IMF websites will boost your grades. Professor may not able to
solve your every single question, especially in a crowded class. Multi-language media
resources, which can be accessed in videos and news categories, are ready to help
you fighting confusion. In these two categories, IMF website has podcasts, speeches
and videos explain how economic models applied on solving problems in reality. For
example, the video What is GDP using simple language to explain definition of GDP
and taking common examples to illustrate. Such easy-to-understand videos can serve as
excellent learning resources for freshmen or students who interested in economics.
What is GDP links: (http://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.aspx?vid=5551839009001)
World Bank Open Data (WB)
Website links: https://data.worldbank.org/

Abstracts:
WB is the right place to gain credible and official data for macroeconomics and international
trade studying. Contents on WB are corresponding to the concepts covered by Econ 304
(Intermediate Macroeconomic Analysis), Econ 333 (International Economics) and Econ 433
(Advanced International Trade Theory and Policy). WB is operated for providing accessible
knowledge for the world. WB database contains extensive collections of time series data, which
can be customized, selected, sliced and downloaded.

Tips and Hints:

1. WB has three sections: Database, Databank and Microdata. Database is the main body
of WB, including time series data and index. Databank is a visualization tool helps you
compare index and data from selected countries and periods, then transform info into a
concise and understandable chart. Microdata contains continually updated worldwide
data through survey of households, business establishments and other facilities.

2. To get started, entering an indicator name, country or facility name in search box which
shows up on the front page, then select one of terms from the matching box. You can
combine another indicator name by searching it in the search box on the result page. If
you would like to combine more indicators or countries, just simply repeat this step until
you feel satisfied with the result.

3. Data can be downloaded from web pages. Seeking for download button either located
at right or below the main chart..
The Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE)
Website Link: https://academic.oup.com/qje

Abstracts:
QJE is the top 1 academic journal in economics, it is also recognized by academia as the most
authoritative economics journal. During the period of undergraduate, journals issued by QJE
can almost fully support for our study and research because the abundant amount of journals
and high quality contents with advanced concepts.

Tips and Hints:

1. QJE is entirely open to Penn State students, we can browse those precious resources
when we connecting Penn State internet.

2. You are able to look up desired content precisely by selecting certain volume or certain
time period. There is a tool bar below categories, you modify your search by changing
decade, year or issue. Additionally, you can switch browse mode between browse by
year and browse by volume.
Investopedia
Website links: http://www.investopedia.com/

Abstracts:
Investopedia can help you figure out concepts in economics by yourself, it covers all definitions,
models and formulas in undergraduate economics study. Investopedia is the largest financial
education website in the world, featuring with an encyclopedia of business related fields and
free credible studying materials. Compared to Wikipedia, Investopedia is not editable, however,
this feature helps Investopedia gain more authorities in education, because only certain
employees with professional knowledge are eligible to edit contents. It is why I prefer looking up
economic terms in Investopedia rather than other online encyclopedia: the contents are more
objective, trustworthy and detailed.

Tips and Hints:

1. Whenever you are seeking for a specific terminology, news or coming up with a random
idea, you are able to hit the search box and enter the keyword to start searching. The
powerful searching engine can predict the most relevant result to you even without the
complete or correct keyword. For example, if you have problem to recall utility but you
still remember this term is related to happiness, just entering the word happiness into
the search box and the term utility will show up at the top of results.

2. Investopedia also has online tutoring and education services. Even though
undergraduate students may less tend to take Investopedias online courses, because
these courses are designed to cover more advanced material in business. But if you
would like to apply for MBA program after graduation, these courses could help you.
Penn State Department of Econ
Website links: http://www.econ.psu.edu/

Abstracts:
This is the official site of Penn States economics department. This site is helpful because the
frequently updated announcements and useful information about graduation requirements and
faculties. This is the most credible, authoritative, reliable information source about our
undergraduate economics program.

Tips and Hints:

1. Checking your instructor's CV before taking his or her class. A resume of faculty
represents his or her education information, working experience and where does he or
she come from. These information are helpful for building academic schedule and critical
for completing courses successfully. For example, the writer of this guide speaks English
as his second language, so he prefer to take class instructed by professor without
foreign accent. The information listed on CV shows if this professor is a native English
speaker or alien living in English-speaking country for a long while.

2. Upcoming Events section contains advantageous information that we may miss.

Students probably would not check the bulletin board in Econ department regularly, but
our department will only posted upcoming speech or social networking events on either
the bulletin board or the website. Expanding your knowledge or social network is
beneficial to your future career no matter if you are going to a company or graduate
school after graduation.