Useful resources

In a previous post, I noted that the Euro crisis (or resolution of the crisis) is likely to be the issue that dominates much of the IPE news this year. That is, barring an economic crash in China or the U.S. that could conceivably emerge for other reasons. One of my hopes in designing the course is that we will be able to discuss these sorts of issues on an ongoing basis, working to figure out what is going on even as global political leaders and leading economists are trying to do the same.

Now, many of the most reputable books and most major academic articles are going to get published more slowly than current events move; this is the nature of how academic work gets reviewed. So we will have to look to other sources to keep up with this. As noted on the bottom of p. 1 of the syllabus, I think some of the best resources are the regional banks of the Federal Reserve. Just click on the map in the link to go to one of the 12 banks, and then look for their research or publications. For some reason, the St. Louis and Atlanta banks in particular seem to have a lot of material on IPE. You may have to do a bit of fishing, but there is a lot of good material that won't show up easily in a Google Scholar search.

Here's an example of a report on the causes of the Euro crisis. Don't consider it required reading by any means - it's a bit technical and probably a better read a few weeks from now. But if this type of issue is your thing, do know that there is more where this came from.

Another good resource is the International Monetary Fund, though their reports tend towards the highly technical. Not to mention their website construction has been lousy for years. You can do a search, or look at their publications page, scrolling down to look at "Working Papers" and "Economic Issues in full text".

These sites have papers that will be timelier than many academic journals, but more analytical than newspapers. They can be helpful for research going forward. You will have to pick and choose, but do consider looking at these sorts of institutions and at this sort of material.