Table of Contents

Articles
Data
Development
Trade
General Information and Tools
An Economics Glossary


This document is a linked, annotated bibliography of economics-related Internet sites. These sites have been selected to be consistent with the needs and abilities of the non-economist National War College student. These links do not require an in-depth knowledge of economics beyond the basics that students receive in the Economics For Strategists course. The material provided at the locations below will help students get better explanations and/or more information on economics-related topics that arise in both the NWC core courses and the electives program, especially the RSSs. Sites that have particular utility for the RSS program and/or Course #4 (Geostrategic Context) are noted by the symbol [R].

How to Access the Sites:
The references below are hyperlinked. For those who are reading this document on a computer that is running a connection to the Internet, a double click on a referenced link is all that is necessary to reach a referenced site.

Site Categories: The references below are grouped into five categories:

1. Articles


2. Data


3. Development


4. Trade


5. General Information and Tools


A number of the sites technically fall into more than one of the above categories, but may only be listed in the category of the site's particular strength. Sites are grouped in their category listing according to the ratings described in the following paragraph.

Ratings:
Each site is rated with 1-3 stars. The highest three star rating has been given to those sites considered by the author to be the most generally useful. That said, some one star sites are sometimes outstanding, though their general utility to the NWC community may be more narrow.

• The Economist

http://www.economist.com/

The Economist is a weekly magazine. It provides excellent coverage of world events, with special emphasis on economics topics. The Economist's occasional surveys on specific countries, regions and topics may be especially helpful to RSS groups. The magazine is well written in language that is easily understood and non-technical. The website includes many of the main articles in each week's edition. Subscribers (a very attractive student/faculty discount is available to those at NWC) to hardcopy edition of The Economist receive access to the full website as well as to archived material.


• The Official Paul Krugman Web Page
  http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/
  
  Paul Krugman is an economist on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a prolific writer on a variety of economics topics for publications ranging from Fortune and the New York Times Sunday Magazine to the e-zine Slate. Most of what Krugman writes is non-technical and easily understood. He has exceptional skill at simplifying complex subjects (e.g. the "Baby Sitting The Economy" article used in the Economics for Strategists course). Krugman's website provides direct links to most of his on-line articles.



• A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget
  http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/budget99/guide/guide.html
  
  This superb site is maintained by the U.S. Government Printing Office. In clear language, making excellent use of graphs and tables, this site will lead you through the basics of the U.S. budget and its related issues and problems. It contains five chapters: 1) What is the Budget? 2) Where the Money Comes From-and Where It Goes, 3) How Does the Government Create a Budget? 4) Deficits and the Debt and 5) The President's (Current Year) Budget.



• Which World
  http://mars3.gps.caltech.edu/whichworld//explore.html
  
  The easy to use site is designed as a tool and a resource to help you think about the future. It offers information about a number of critical trends (e.g. economics, demographics, political) globally and for each of seven continental-scale regions of the world. These trends, projected out to the year 2050, suggest constraints on the future. Trends are projected according to several scenarios (e.g. market world, fortress world).



• U.S. Federal Reserve: Economic Teaching Materials

http://www.frbsf.org/econedu/curriculum/index.html

The best materials offered on this page are:


1. http://www.frbchi.org/pubs-speech/publications/BOOKLETS/fed_central/fed_central.html, an easily understood explanation of the Fed and how it performs its role,



2. http://www.ny.frb.org/pihome/educator/fomcsim.html, a user-friendly simulation of the Federal Open Market Committee - the body that sets those interest rates so important to the stock market these days, and


3. http://www.frbchi.org/pubs-speech/publications/BOOKLETS/strong_dollar/strong_dollar.html, an excellent, easily understood explanation of exchange rates and how they affect the U.S. economy.


• Brad De Long Website

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/

Brad De Long is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Dept. This is an exceptionally eclectic site, but has many interesting articles and linkages on economics topics.


• Asian and Global Crisis Homepage

http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/asia/AsiaHomepage.html

This page contains extensive linkages to data and materials on the Asian economic crisis. It is a must-see for those interested in this topic.


• The International Institute for Economics

http://www.iie.com/

This site contains brief, readable articles on current domestic and international economics topics written by some of the best-regarded economists in the U.S.


• Economic Issues (USIA)

http://www.usia.gov/topical/econ/econ.htm

This U.S. Information Agency site offers up-to-date articles on key economics issues of relevance to American foreign policy. When available, it also provides the text of official USG statements on such matters. Note: The links page at this site offers an outstandingly well chosen selection of U.S. and international bodies involved in economics, development and trade.


• The Dead Economists' Society

http://cac.psu.edu/~jdm114/

The Dead Economists Society Home Page is dedicated to the appreciation of the extraordinary insights of classical liberal economics. A classical liberal economist is defined as one who has been a champion of free markets, limited government and private property. Among those dead economists who meet the definition of classical liberal are Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Ayn Rand, and James Madison. Entries include brief biographies and summaries of major contributions and works.


• Tulipmania

http://www.bulb.com/tulips/tulipmania.html

This site provides a brief summary of the creation and bursting of a speculative "economic bubble." In the wildly speculative market-place, even the threat of government crackdowns did not halt the illegal trading of the hottest commodity in 17th century Holland - tulip bulbs. Fortunes were doubled overnight. Poor men became rich, and rich men became filthy rich - until the bubble burst.

• U.S. Census Bureau International Database

http://bizednet.bris.ac.uk:8080/dataserv/idbsum.htm

This very easy to use page allows the user to obtain a summary of demographic data for one or more countries. Click on the desired country and receive information on population size, growth rates, gender, life expectancy, and birth and death rates. Tabular information provides data from 1950 through the present and offers projections through 2050.


• U.S. Census International Database

http://www.census.gov/ftp/pub/ipc/www/idbprint.html

This easily accessed database is more user-defined than the previous site. You may select from menus: a) one of 26 demographic and related economic variables b) for as few or as many of the countries of the world you wish to choose and c) display them for your choice of as many or as few years from 1950 to 2050. Data will be displayed in a very usable table format.


• Dr. Ed Yardeni's Economics Network

http://www.yardeni.com/country.html

This excellent site contains a wealth of easily accessed resources. Yardeni is the Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. His On-line Chart Rooms contain economic data for the G-7 countries and the developing world. Yardeni's home page, http://www.yardeni.com/, includes a number of highly relevant and readable articles, as well as interesting and entertaining links.


• Fedstats

http://www.fedstats.gov/

More than 70 United States Government agencies produce statistics of interest to the public. The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to the full range of statistics and information produced by these agencies for public use.


• Statistical Resources on the Web***

http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/stats.html

This site is exceptionally rich in resources. Topics covered include: agriculture, business and industry, consumers, cost-of-living, demographics, economics, education, energy, environment, finance, foreign government data sources, international economics, foreign trade, government finances, health, housing, labor, military, politics, science, sociology, tourism, transportation, and weather. At the bottom of the page, note the section labeled "Government Resources on the Web." This section not only includes data links, but also contains ties to organization charts, biographies, etc.


• Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.bls.gov/blshome.htm

This excellent site provides the authoritative current and historical data on much of the U.S. economy. Included are: unemployment, inflation (the Consumer Price Index), wages and productivity. Much of this data is provided very succinctly in graphs and tables in the section labeled "Economy At A Glance." Easily accessed links are also provided to other official USG and foreign data sources.


• Bureau of Economic Analysis

http://www.bea.doc.gov/
The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce gathers information on GDP and income at the national and regional levels, as well as statistics on international trade. The Bureau's Survey of Current Business is also available at the site.


• White House Economic Statistics Briefing Room**

http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/esbr.html

This site provides easy access to a variety of current Federal economic indicators. The information is compiled from a number of agencies and is maintained and updated by those agencies.


• EconEdLink**

http://www.economicsamerica.org/econedlink/newsline/datalinks/index.html

This site lists current key economic indicators for the United States (e.g. real GDP, the Consumer Price Index, unemployment rate). Each indicator includes a direct link to the data source from which it was taken.


• Rutgers University: Economics Resources**

http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rulib/socsci/econ/econ.html#menu.1

This is one of the most comprehensive lists of non-annotated data resources on the web. If you cannot find the data you seek using the other links in this document, this list is worth searching. Instructions: Scroll down to Economic Internet Resources, then search Item 1, Electronic Data Sources and Data Archives.


• World Bank Data

http://www.worldbank.org/data/countrydata/countrydata.html

The World Bank is considered one of the "authoritative sources" for international social and economic data. Its complete data series (The World Bank Development Report) is available on CD-ROM from the NDU Library. This link permits one to select a given country (of a total of 210) or region to receive a comprehensive data set (of the user's choice), which can then be exported to any of several of the popular spreadsheet programs.
http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/databytopic.html

At a separate location, World Bank data on a wide selection of topics are presented in two forms. Most are tables from the World Development Indicators. Others are links to sites containing the relevant data. Definitions of indicators that appear in the World Development Indicators are available.


• Statistical Agencies on the Internet**

http://www.science.gmu.edu/csi779/drope/govstats.html

This website contains a table that offers a listing of statistical agencies on the Internet. Each entry contains links to the agencies' main sites as well as direct links to sites with individual statistical data and information.


• Resources for Economists on the Internet

http://rfe.wustl.edu/Data/index.html

Contains many data links for the U.S. and other countries.


• Penn World Data Request Form* [R]

http://bizednet.bris.ac.uk:8080/dataserv/penn.htm

This website provides social, demographic and economic data for nearly every country. You can select any number of countries, variables and years (1950-92) desired. Making a selection of countries, data, etc. is very easily accomplished through a fill-in-the-blank format. Note: While this page offers a wider variety of data, it may be less current and not as well presented as can be found on the U.S. Census Bureau International Data site.


• U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)*

http://www.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html

The site enables the user to search the USG database for specified information. It also contains a useful list of USG databases. However, it does not provide direct links to these sites.


• The Congressional Budget Office*

http://www.cbo.gov/

This site offers a wide variety of current information and data related to the U.S. economy. Data include budget and economic projections, status of discretionary appropriations, and historical budget data. Some information at this site is relatively sophisticated.


• Worldwide Resources in Economics* [R]

http://www.helsinki.fi/WebEc/

WebEc is an effort to categorize economics information on the WWW. While it does not contain any original material, it does offer links to a very large body of economic information, analysis and data. This site would be most useful to people seeking knowledge on more hard-to-find economics topics. More commonly available information (e.g. macroeconomic profiles of countries) may be more easily accessed from other sites included in this document.

• USAID Development Links

http://www.info.usaid.gov/about/resources/

USAID's Development Links page provides a unique collection of direct links to a very wide variety of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, as well as multilateral and other bilateral donors. USAID's homepage (www.info.usaid.gov) provides good information on the Agency's strategy and programs.


• Eldis Development Subject Guides

http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/eldbr.htm

Eldis is a gateway to a well-selected compendium of on-line information on a wide variety of economic and social development topics.


• World Bank: Development Topics

http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/thematic.htm

This site provides a primer on economic development topics. It is a very useful place to go to define and understand key issues. Unfortunately, the formats for each topic are inconsistent, with some being more user-friendly than others. Links to additional information are also provided.


• United Nations Human Development Report

http://www.undp.org/hdro/

This site contains the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) tables and related easily understood explanations. The index covers nearly every country in the world. In addition to HDI rankings, data is presented on life expectancy, adult literacy, and per capita GDP (at real PPP). Data is available from 1990 to the present.


• Inter-American Development Bank

http://www.iadb.org/ENGLISH/index_english.html

The IDB is the regional development bank for Latin American and the Caribbean. Its home page provides direct links to its various databases. The best of these is the Economic and Social Database, which permits the user to define in a fill-in-the-blank format the desired countries, years (1980-present), and variable (only one at a time permitted).


• Trade and Development Center

http://www.itd.org/index1.htm

This site is a work in progress, and is a joint effort by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. It is directed at those who are interested in social and economic development and how these are related to trade. The site presently includes several case studies (India, Uganda, the Ivory Coast) and an interactive guide to the WTO.


• Eldis Links to Development Indicators

http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dbtcgi.exe?RNO=ht7&$TEXTBASE_PATH=d:\InetPub\wwwroot\data\&$TEXTBASE_NAME=high&$MAXRECS=10&$NOREPORT=0&$NODISPLAY=0&$REPORT_FORM=htop&$DISPLAY_FORM=htop

Links to a well-chosen selection of development, environment, gender and other relevant data.

• The World Trade Organization

http://www.wto.org/

This is the WTO's main website. It provides explanations of the WTO and contains articles on current trade issues, such as the environment, intellectual property, and development. The site also provides databases on world trade that can be downloaded to Microsoft Excel.


• Transparency International: Corruption Perceptions Index

http://www.transparency.de/documents/cpi/index.html

Transparency International is a non-governmental organization dedicated to increasing government accountability and curbing both international and national corruption. The 1998 Corruption Perception Index scoring is derived from surveys of business people. The site includes links to prior year TI surveys.


• The World Competitiveness Scorecard

http://www.imd.ch/wcy/factors/overall.html

Developed by the International Institute for Management Development, the World Competitiveness Scorecard compiles and analyzes data on 47 industrialized and emerging economies in order to rank their competitiveness. Countries compete for investment by providing an environment with efficient policies, institutions, and infrastructure that enable enterprises to succeed in international markets.


• The United States Trade Representative (USTR)

http://www.ustr.gov/

The USTR provides information on, and the texts of, various trade agreements and related actions. While this site offers authoritative information on trade matters, it is rather dry and technical.


• The Office of Trade and Economic Analysis

http://www.ita.doc.gov/cgi-bin/otea_ctr?task=otea

The Office of Trade and Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce developed this site. It provides analysis and data related to international and domestic trade and investment issues. The site also includes links to industry specific and foreign trade information.


• Trade and Development Center

http://www.itd.org/index1.htm

This site is a work in progress, and is a joint effort by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. It is directed at those who are interested in social and economic development and how these are related to trade. The site presently includes several case studies (India, Uganda, the Ivory Coast) and an interactive guide to the WTO.

• CIA World Factbook

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

The CIA Factbook is an excellent means of assembling basic information on nearly every country in the world. It contains concise geographic, political, economic and historical information, as well as some excellent maps.


• Economic Literacy Survey Questions

http://www.nationalcouncil.org/poll/econsurvey.html

This quick and easy interactive test provides the user with an estimate of his or her basic economic literacy. The test was originally directed at high school students, but has since been applied to a wider population. Each of the 20 questions is directed at probing the understanding of basic economic concepts (which, through a direct link, is explained in simple, easily understood language).


• The Dismal Scientist

http://www.dismal.com/

Dismal is an economics "portal" that provides the latest information on a wide variety of economic indicators. The site includes domestic and international economic and business forecasts, demographic information, and in-depth analysis by nationally recognized economists. It also includes brief summaries and linkages to current articles on economics topics.


• About.COM Guide to Economics

http://economics.about.com/index.htm?COB&PID=2714=home

About.COM is a good search engine. Its guide to economics is an outstanding source of links to a variety of information and data. This is an excellent place to begin a search for current or historic economics information for nearly any country. In a linked section called Economics in On-Line Mags, the site provides summaries of recent articles on economics issues from non-academic sources (and includes direct links to the full articles). The site also includes a Guide of Great Economists and Their Times http://www.frbsf.org/econedu/curriculum/great/frames.html which presents very brief bios of the historically significant economists and their contributions.


• The Inflation Calculator

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

Do you want to know what the defense budget of 1950 is worth in 1998 dollars? Or what the 1998 budget would be worth in 1963 dollars? This is the place to go. In the blanks provided, type in the amount of money, the initial year (going as far back as 1800) and the final year, press the button and you have your result. This is a very easy to use tool.


• American Institute for Economic Research

http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html

Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, this site offers a very easy to use cost of living calculator that enables real price calculations of dollar amounts from 1913 to the present. In the boxes provided, type in the starting dollar amount and year, followed by the desired comparison year (moving forward or backward in time). For example, you can calculate the value of your current salary in 1975 dollars.


• National Budget Simulation

http://socrates.berkeley.edu:3333/budget/budget.html

This is an excellent, very easy to use tool, especially for Courses #3 and #5. This simple simulation gives you a better feel of the trade-offs which citizens and policy makers must make in order to balance the budget. The simulation asks you to cut the 1995 fiscal deficit in order to achieve a balanced budget. Each line item contains hyper-linked lists and definitions of the budget elements involved.