Better Life Initiative: Your Better Life Index

How do you define a better life? What matters most to you – good schools, safe streets or something else?

The OECD Better Life Initiative proposes an interactive tool, Your Better Life Index, which enables you to rate your country on the things you feel make for a better life.

The Index allows citizens to compare well-being across 34 countries, based on 11 dimensions the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life:

housing, income, jobs, community, education,environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety, work-life balance.

The OECD is NOT deciding what makes for better lives. YOU decide for yourself.

The Index currently covers the 34 member countries of the OECD.

The Index allows you to put different weights on each of the topics, and therefore to decide for yourself what contributes most to well-being.

Try the Index!

Freedom in the World (Statistics)

Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s flagship publication, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. Published annually since 1972, the survey ratings and narrative reports on 193 countries and 15 related and disputed territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide.  The Freedom in the World DATA and REPORTS are available in their entirety on the Freedom House website.

Comparative scores for all countries from 1973 to 2006

Latest Papers on Information and Communication Technologies

Information and communication technologies and geographic concentration of manufacturing industries: Evidence from China

by Hong, Junjie

Fu, Shine

Using the 2004 China economic census database, this paper examines the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the geographic concentration of manufacturing industries, controlling for other determinants of industrial agglomeration. Higher geographic concentration is found consistently in industries where ICT are more widely adopted, and the association is stronger at higher geographic levels. Furthermore, young firms that have adopted ICT, although they are more footloose, contribute to industrial agglomeration. High-tech industries with advanced ICT also tend to agglomerate. Contrary to the prevalent argument that ICT lead to more dispersion, our study suggests that ICT promote industrial agglomeration.

Some Policy Issues on Open Source and Proprietary Software

Graziella Marzi

Software industry is a fast growing sector of the economy which is undergoing significant changes both for the presence of the open source mode of production and for the challenges of globalization and convergence with other industries. This paper analyses the role of open source software (OSS) on competition and innovation in the software industry and debates the economic rationales for promoting the adoption of OSS by national and local governments.

Online Research in Economics

There are some websites allow user to access research article at free of cost . Few of them are here

EconPapers
EconPapers is the part of RepEc that collects working papers in economics available on the Internet. There are over 150,000 downloadable working papers drawn from many hundreds of series from academics working in institutions from around the world. There are also over 250,000 downloadable journal articles, as well as smaller collections of books, book chapters, and software items. The database is continually increasing in size. Users can search for items of interest using a large number of search options or monitor the list of the latest arrivals.

EconWPA – Economics Working Papers Archive

This archive of the former site EconWPA.wustl.edu is a large collection of economics working papers. It is organised by JEL classifications with additional categories for Computer Programs, Data Sets, Risk and Insurance. In each sub-section there is a short list of related links. PDF files are available for between half and two-thirds of each section of papers.

Global Development Network

Global Development Network (GDN) is “a global network of research and policy institutes working together to address the problems of national and regional development.” Founded in 1999, GDN organises conferences, gives development awards, holds research competitions, runs research projects and has begun a data initiative enabling low income countries to access datasets. Partners in GDN include the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), International Monetary Fund, UNICEF and Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. The Knowledge Base section of the site offers papers, researchers’ details, CVs, and links to research. GDN is working on giving access to journals for low income countries, in conjunction with the British Library of Development Studies (BLDS), UK.

IDEAS

A huge directory of economics working papers and articles, that is based on a project which created a protocol for the sharing of electronic working paper archives, called RePEc (Research Papers in Economics). Users can browse by series, by JEL classification or search by keyword. The service is based at the University of Connecticut but is a collaborative project involving many universities and economics academics.

Quantitative Macroeconomics and Real Business Cycle

This mixed collection of resources was produced by Swiss economist Christian Zimmerman, of the University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada. The pages link to several resources about quantitative macroeconomics and real business cycle (RBC) theory. Zimmerman explains that RBC theory is now also commonly called “Stochastic Dynamic General Equilibrium (SDGE)” theory, or “Dynamic General Equilibrium (DGE)” . Resources listed include definitions of RBC, economics recruitment websites, a directory of quantitative macreconomists, and research centres.

RGE Monitor

This site contains material on Macroeconomics produced by Professor Nouriel Roubini at the Stern School of Business, New York University. The site includes the text of lectures; a reading list, with many of the references being available full-text online; links to academic papers; interactive quizzes; and links to news stories on the Internet.

Social Science Research Network: SSRN

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website is primarily a searchable database of research abstracts and papers. The SSRN is made up of a small group of social science based subject networks that include accounting, economics, political science, financial economics and law. The SSRN maintains a range of web-based resources including an Abstract Database (with information regarding recent working and accepted papers) and an Electronic Working Paper Collection (that includes PDF files containing full-text of recent research papers). The SSRN also publishes individually delivered email abstracting journals in over 100 different subject areas and announces and delivers research papers for many research institutes, universities and professional organizations.

Social, Economic and Political Change

Compiled and managed by Dr. Gene Shackman, this website ‘looks at long term, large scale changes in social, political and economic systems at the national and international levels. The principal aim is to present information that can be used to explain historical change, growth and development.’ After an introductory summary by the author, various sections (Theory, Data, National Profiles, etc.) offer annotated lists of websites. The presentation is basic and easy to navigate; the collection of sites is useful and the annotation is brief but helpful. The site also contains a number of reports about global social, political, economic and demographic change.

Vox

Vox is a policy portal featuring research-based analysis and commentary from Europe’s leading economists, that is produced by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. The primary intended audience is economists and users of economic research in governments, international organisations, academia and the private sector as well as journalists and commentators specialising in economics, finance and business. Vox provides access to short articles between 500 and 1500 words that are written at an analytical level that is higher than a typical newspaper column but very much more accessible than a journal article. Users can view the most recent articles, explore the archive by tag, subject, author or keyword search and subscribe to various RSS feeds. Registered users can comment on articles.

Democratizing Innovation : Video Lecture

This Lecture By Eric Von Hippel  and brought to you by MITWORLD.

If you have ever come up with a work-around or improvement for a balky product only to find that it performs better than the original, you are not alone. Eric von Hippel proffers multiple examples where an ordinary user, frustrated or even desperate, solves a problem through innovation. His research found innovative users playing with all manner of product: mountain bikes, library IT systems, agricultural irrigation, and scientific instruments. Often, manufacturers keep at arm’s length from these inventions. He describes the Lego company “standing like a deer in headlights” when technologically adept adults discovered they could design their own sophisticated Lego robots. User communities arise, freely communicate with each other, advance ideas and sometimes even “drive the manufacturer out of product design,” according to von Hippel. This widely distributed inventing bug is a good trend, believes von Hippel, because users “tend to make things that are functionally novel.” Not only is it “freeing for individuals” but it also creates a “free commons” of product ideas, parallel to the more restrictive world of intellectual property governed by less creative manufacturers.

Democratizing Innovation

Play Now |

SPEAKER: Eric von Hippel Professor of Management and Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, MIT Sloan School of Management

Online Study Material

Connexions is a website which provides study material on varieties of subject. It is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:

• authors create and collaborate
• instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
• learners find and explore content

Broad categories of subjects are

 

• Arts
• Business
• Humanities
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Science and Technology
• Social Sciences

Books For PhD Students

Books for PhD students. these books will help you increase your ability to write article and papers without compromising quality

• Matthew Pearson‘s (UC Davis) guide to Surviving the First-Year of grad school.
• On a related theme, Survive, Then Thrive, an empirical paper on grad school success.
• John Cochrane‘s (Chicago) recommendations for academic writing: Writing Tips for PhD Students.
• John Creedy‘s (Melbourne) introduction to the publishing process: From Manuscript to Publication.
• Harvard’s Information for Graduate Students on the Job Market.
• John Cawley‘s (Cornell) manual A Guide and Advice for Economists on the US Junior Academic Job Market.
• Hisham Foad‘s (San Diego State) job-landing guide Memoirs of a Job Market Candidate.
• Paul Oyer (Stanford) on the luck factor in career success: The Macro-Foundations of Microeconomics: Initial Labor Market Conditions and Long-Term Outcomes for Econmoists and MBAs.
• Job Market Rumors and the Interview / Flyout and Offer wikis, run by mysterious benefactor “Tatonnement.”

Economics Notes(audio)

Technological development making learning easy. you may be tired of searching articles, notes and then need to make your mind to read those. here you can try some audio lesson.

Some small audio files discussing the economic problems, prepared by biz/ed

The Economic Problem [2MB]

Public and Private Sectors: Part 1 [3MB]

Economic Systems – Introduction [1.2MB]

Economic Systems – Market Economy [3.3MB]

Unemployment 1 [2.7 MB]

Unemployment 3 [1.5 MB]

Location of Industry 2 [2.1 MB]

Multinational Companies 1 [1 MB]

Multinational Companies 3 [1.75 MB]

India’s middle class failure

A large pocket of population of India belong to middle class. development of an economy also depends on the development of this class. unfortunately this class is often underestimated in politics and social justice.

The September 2007 issue of Prospect magazine has an interesting cover story on India’s middle class failure.

It’s an interesting read. A PDF version is available here. Also worth reading are the comments on the weblog post .

Game: Play With Statiscal Data

This software called Gapminder tool.  It is a online tool to study data (especially trend) of an economy. Country wise classification will give you a visual treat.

Enjoy it