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Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!swrinde!emory!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!nntp.st.usm.edu!whale.st.usm.edu!not-for-mail From: bgoffe@whale.st.usm.edu Newsgroups: sci.econ.research,sci.econ,sci.answers,news.answers Subject: Economists' Resources on the Internet Followup-To: poster Date: 26 Mar 1994 21:10:15 -0600 Organization: University of Southern Mississippi Lines: 1823 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: Fri, 29 April 1994 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <2n2ten$18pj@whale.st.usm.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: whale.st.usm.edu Summary: This documents contains a list of resources of interest to economists. It should be of interest to anyone looking for economic data and many types of related information. Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu sci.econ.research:839 sci.econ:10642 sci.answers:1015 news.answers:16883 Archive-name: econ-resources-faq Sci-econ-research-archive-name: econ-resources-faq Last-modified 1994/3/26 Version: 5.1 RESOURCES FOR ECONOMISTS ON THE INTERNET Bill Goffe Dept. of Economics and International Business University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406 bgoffe@whale.st.usm.edu (601) 266-4484 (office) (601) 266-4920 (fax) March 26, 1994 TABLE OF CONTENTS + 0. NOTE 1. INTRODUCTION 2. NEW IN THIS VERSION 3. U.S. MACRO AND U.S. REGIONAL DATA A. Economic Bulletin Board (EBB) B. EconData * C. Bureau of Labor Statistics (LABSTAT) D. Federal Reserve E. New England Electronic Economic Data Center (NEEEDc) 4. OTHER DATA (INCLUDING NON-U.S.) A. Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) B. National Archives Center for Electronic Records C. Social Security Administration (OSS-IS) D. FedWorld E. Public Domain Financial Data F. Census G. EDGAR H. Vienna Stock Market I. Productivity Analysis Research Network (PARN) J. U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service K. World Bank Public Information Center (PIC) L. Wall Street Journal and New York Times News Service 5. WORKING PAPER ARCHIVES AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SERVICES A. NetEc (BibEc & WoPEc) B. Working Paper Archive (Wash. Univ., St. Louis) C. Feminist Economists Discussion Group Archive 6. GOPHERS A. Economics Gopher at Sam Houston State University B. Computational Economics Gopher C. ClioNet (Cliometric Society) D. National Bureau of Economic Research Gopher E. Academe This Week (Chronicle of Higher Education) F. Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept. G. RiceInfo H. University of Michigan Economics Department I. Communications for a Sustainable Future J. SunSITE K. RISKNet L. Florida State College of Business 7. UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH LIBRARY CARD CATALOGS A. Research Libraries in General B. Library of Congress C. North Carolina State University's "Library Without Walls" 8. PROGRAM LIBRARIES A. Netlib B. Statlib C. Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Statistical Library 9. EDUCATIONAL SERVICES A. Iowa Electronic Markets 10. USENET NEWSGROUPS 11. MAILING LISTS A. Introduction B. Single Topic Mailing Lists C. Financial Economists Network (FEN) 12. DATA RELATED TO THE ECONOMICS PROFESSION A. Graduate Programs 13. WORD PROCESSING A. TeX References B. TeX Macros for Economics and TeX Sources 14. PROGRAMS FOR ECONOMISTS ON THE INTERNET A. BCI Data Manager 15. USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET A. Books B. On-Line Guide C. Software D. Resources 16. NON-INTERNET RESOURCES A. Introduction B. Federal Reserve Bank Bulletin Boards C. Electronic JEL Index D. On-Line Refereed Economics Journal +0. NOTE + + This version is a repeat of the last version with one correction. + It was issued since the previous version was due to expire on Usenet + sites and I have not had the time to write up the next version. A + new draft should be ready in a few weeks. 1. INTRODUCTION This document, which is updated every six weeks or so, and its successors, can be found in several places. They include, via ftp, rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/sci.econ.research and, via gopher, at the Economics Working Paper Archive at Washington University at St. Louis and the Economics Gopher at Sam Houston State University. Finally, I'd be happy to send it out via email to all who request it. This is my fifth stab at this document. I am very interested in any corrections, suggestions, omissions, and hints anyone might have. Hopefully, a refined version will be appearing in The Journal of Economic Perspectives along with a description of the Internet and the tools used to access it. Thus, any suggestions you might have may reach a large audience. While relatively few economists use the Internet, there is a surprising amount of very useful information on it. For instance, there are two very extensive sets of U.S. macro data, detailed data from the Fed and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a bibliography of some 35,000 working papers in economics, household surveys from 21 countries, three interactive electronic markets, more than 50 mailing lists and two Usenet newsgroups. I apologize for any crosslistings. However, it appears that economists use many different lists, so to reach the broadest audience, crosspostings are unavoidable. Some of the information is not as complete as I would wish. Further, some of the resources I have not investigated thoroughly and I cannot vouch for them. While I catalog many mailing lists, I have little information about the volume and types of discussions. Most of the resources I was able to find deal with the United States. Leads on information on other countries would be appreciated. I would like to acknowledge many people who have commented and made suggestions on previous versions of this document. Without their help, there would be fewer resources listed and the existing descriptions would be more difficult to read. In particular, I would like to thank Forrest Smith for suggesting I undertake this project, and Thomas Krichel, George D. Greenwade and Bob Parks for constant suggestions. More generally, I have received help from Mona Andersen, Kit Baum, Eric Branckaert, Christian Burks, David Chester, Alex Deacon, Karen Ewens, Daniel Feenberg, Gary Ferrier, Matthew Flynn, James R. Garven, Seth Greenblatt, Dave Hartland, Christian Helmenstein, Doug Henwood, Joe Hirschburg, Prue Hyman, Alan G. Isaac, Nicholas Karatjas, Ray Kiddy, Michael Kosz, Gary F. Langer, Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, Wayne Marr, Clive Massey, Ty B. Mitchell, Peter Mitter, Keith Morgan, Ron Overman, Tim Parker, Karl B. Radov, Shyamala Raman, Terry Rephann, Rob Raisch, Ken Rogers, Larry Rosenburg, Lauri Saarinen, Terry Schroepfer, Ajay Shaw, Ross Shaw, George Slotsve, Timothy Smeeding, Una Smith, Johannes Strasser, Hal Varian, Edward Vielmetti, Larry Weiser, David Wildasin, Sam Williamson, Stephen Yeo, Edith Wu, and Grace York. Notes: - Items in " " are typed directly as commands. - Unless otherwise stated, FTP means anonymous FTP. - I give directions for gopher in what I call direct and indirect methods. Some gopher client software allows you to "point" at a gopher site (the direct method), while other software does not, so you have to navigate through gopherspace (the indirect method). With the indirect method, you must first find the gopher directory devoted to what is usually titled "Other Gophers" (generally in the top or next to top menu). - Many of the gophers devoted to economics are interconnected; no mention is made of this below since it would take a lot of space to say who is connected to whom. The gophers at Sam Houston State University, the Economics Department at Washington University in St. Louis and RiceInfo seem to have the greatest number of interconnections. - For both gophers and anonymous FTP sites, the location is given as host:directory. Thus, in the directions for EconData, you'll see the FTP site given as info.umd.edu:/info/EconData. This means that you do an anonymous ftp to info.umd.edu and change to the /info/EconData directory (be sure to preserve case when typing). - For World Wide Web resources, Uniform Resource Locators (URL) are used to denote their location. They have the form resource://host:#/directory. A future version of this document will employ this increasingly popular standard. - Information about compressed files, converting binary files to text so they can be emailed and converted back to binary, and locations on gopher software can be found in the section titled USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET. 2. NEW IN THIS VERSION New resources in this draft are denoted with a + in the first column, while changes to resources mentioned previously are denoted with a * in the first column. Major new entries in this draft include the SEC's EDGAR database of corporate fillings, LABSTAT, a very extensive database from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve data, documents from the World Bank, and the Financial Economists Network, a group of mailing lists in that field. Finally, in a nice preview of the future of the Internet, fully formatted working papers from the Working Paper Archive at Washington University in St. Louis can be viewed on-line. 3. U.S. MACRO AND U.S. REGIONAL DATA A. Economic Bulletin Board (EBB) This service is an outgrowth of a dial-up bulletin board offered by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It contains more than 2,000 files from the Departments of Commerce, Labor and Treasury, the Federal Reserve and other agencies. The EBB is currently offered on the Internet in two places. The first is a telnet interface to the EBB at the Department of Commerce, and the second is at a library gopher at the University of Michigan. EBB at the Commerce Department This resource began charging for their services on Oct. 1. Charges for Internet telnet access follow. Timed Charges: Annual subscription fee $45 Credit for connect charges $20 8AM - noon (Eastern) $24/hour noon - 6PM $18/hour 6PM - 8AM (& holidays, $6/hour weekends) Flat Fees Up to 1 hour/day $250/year Up to 4 hours/day $400/year The current telent interface is basically that used for the dial- up bulletin board. Thus, one must capture on the information from the screen or use a bulletin board type download (such as Kermit). I have not tried the later and can offer no advice. To capture all screen data on a Unix system, one can do "telnet ebb.stat-usa.gov | tee ebb.data" where tee takes the screen data and places it in the file ebb.data. FTP and gopher access may be available at this time; plans were to charge by the amount transferred. Limited guest accounts are available, use "guest" as the password. You are limited to 20 minutes of connection time and not all files are available. Most information is in four areas: the bulletin system (which describes how to use the system), the file system (which contains files), the trade promotion system,and the utilities system (which sets passwords, terminal types, etc.) Basic information on the system can be found in the bulletin system (entered by typing "B") under "3", while a listing of files can be found in the file listing system (entered by typing "L") under 17. Data comes in several formats. Some comes in DOS self extracting files, some in .PRN (so it can be used in spreadsheets or software that can import spreadsheet data), and some in a specialized format. TELNET: ebb.stat-usa.gov EBB at the University of Michigan Library Gopher The University manually downloads files daily from the dial- up EBB. It is said to contain 700 files; I have no information on the different numbers of files contained by the two versions of the EBB. Information on file formats and the system in general can be found under the heading "Current Business Statistics" and "EBB and Agency Information and misc. files." As with the Commerce Department location, data comes in several different forms. A convenient listing of all directories for the EBB can be found in a file called "Contents of the Ulibrary Gopher" at the "University of Michigan Libraries" (described below). One good educational use of this gopher is recent press releases concerning economic statistics. I frequently use it just before class to check the most recent numbers. The directory directly above EBB at the University of Michigan contains a variety of useful information. TELNET: una.hh.lib.umich.edu (login as "gopher" and move to /Social Science Resources/Economics) GOPHER (direct): una.hh.lib.umich.edu /socsci/Economics GOPHER (indirect): USA/Michigan/University of Michigan Libraries/Social Science Resources/Economics B. EconData This database, collected by INFORUM, a project building an inter-industry model of the U.S. economy, processes a wide variety of macro data and places it in a common format. Data includes the National Income and Product Accounts, balance of payments, flow of funds, CPI, PPI, the Penn World Trade Tables (permission needed), International Financial Statistics (if your organization is a member of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research), blue pages from the Survey of Current Business, and state and local data including employment, earnings, GSP and state personal income. The data is accessed by programs (only for Pcs) provided by this project and it can easily be output to ASCII or into a spreadsheet format. The data is also compressed with pkzip, and they provide this and similar programs as well. For introductory information, see "Instruction/contents.doc" and "Instructions/guide.doc". The program that retrieves data (PDG) is relatively straightforward, but let me add my own experiences. First, you may need to change the path to the help files in the g.cfg file. Assuming that you're in a directory with one of the unzipped data files, start the program by typing "pdg". Then, a return will allow you to start normally. The command "look" allows one to survey the data in that file (additional commands are found on the bottom of the screen that allow you to print the data to the screen or graph it). One leaves the look command with an escape. To print the data to an external file in columns, use the "matty" command. After typing "matty" and the full file name you choose, you'll be prompted for the series names that can be obtained with "look". Don't separate series names with commas and be sure to end the command with a semicolon. The output of matty lists dates in the first column, but you'll need to modify the fractions used to denote months and quarters. Finally, you can easily plot data to the screen to get an approximate idea of what it looks like. TELNET: info.umd.edu (login as "gopher" and move to /Educational Resources/Economic Data) GOPHER (direct): info.umd.edu:/Educational Resources/Economic Data GOPHER (indirect): USA/Maryland/University of Maryland /Resources/Economic Data FTP: info.umd.edu:/info/EconData * C. Bureau of Labor Statistics (LABSTAT) This site offers very detailed data in a number of areas. Quoting from their documentation, they include: Average Price Data Collective Bargaining-State & Local Gov't Collective Bargaining-Private Sector Consumer Price Index-All Urban Consumers Consumer Price Index-Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers Employee Benefits Survey Employment Cost Index Employment, Hours, & Earnings-National International Price Index Special Export Comparison Index Employment Projections by Industry Geographic Profile Occupational Injury & Illness Rates International Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics Department Store Inventory Price Index Major Sector Multifactor Productivity Index Producer Price Index Revision-Current Series Producer Price Index Revision-Discontinued Series Federal Government Productivity Index Industry Labor Productivity Index Major Sector Productivity & Costs Index State & Area Employment, Hours, & Earnings Occupational Injury and Illness Rates Producer Price Index Work Stoppage Data Data is generally quite disaggregated; overall, there are many megabytes of files. Besides historical data, recent press releases are available. All data is in the pub directory, which contains a further three directories: doc, news.release, and time.series. For a short introduction, read the README file in the pub directory, while information on how the files are stored is located in the overview.doc file in the doc directory. In general, the news releases in the news.releases directory are quite useful for tracking current events, while the great amount of detail in the actual time series appears to take some effort to use. * FTP: stats.bls.gov INFORMATION (on Internet access): labstat.helpdesk@bls.gov INFORMATION (on data issues): see the contact.doc in /pub/doc D. Federal Reserve To paraphrase from the README file for this information, this data is from PC disks made available by the Board of Governors and placed on the Internet by the Internet Multicasting Service (which, among other things, helps run EDGAR and the Internet's own "radio" show, "Geek of the Week."). In general, the data is quite extensive and detailed. Most dates back a number of years. All is in ASCII form, but some of the columns widths are more than 80 characters and some of the names are less than intuitive. As always, be sure to read all the information provided in the various help files. All data is in the fed directory. Quoting from the README file in that directory, the data is in the following directories: flow Flow of funds tables. g_17 Industrial production and capacity utilization. g_17_his Industrial production and capacity utilization. h_3 Reserves of depository institutions. h_4_2 Weekly series on assets and liabilities of large commercial banks. h_15 Selected interest rates. money Money stock measures and components. others Other Federal Reserve data tables. Each directory contains many files and some even contain other directories of data. In each, there are several compressed files in different formats (denoted with different filename suffixes) with that directory's files. Each directory also contains a file with information on the data in that directory (the names of these files vary). FTP: town.hall.org:/other/fed E. New England Electronic Economic Data Center (NEEEDc) This database, the bulletin board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, specializes in data on the New England economy. It carries all historical data published in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's New England Economic Indicators (some 90 variables from 1969 for all states and some metropolitan areas) and GSP data for the New England area from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data is in .PRN format, so it can be read directly by Lotus or Quatro. FTP: neeedc.umesbs.maine.edu INFORMATION: Jim Breece (breece@maine.maine.edu) 4. OTHER DATA (INCLUDING NON-U.S.) A. Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) This project brings together 66 household surveys from 21 countries into a common database to make studies of international economic comparisons easier. For instance, it includes Current Population Surveys from the U.S., French Surveys of Income, and a Hungarian Income Study. The average survey has approximately 9,000 households with more than 20,000 members. To maintain confidentiality and restrictions on use, the data remains on the host computer in Luxembourg and researchers run jobs remotely on that system through electronic mail. Users must first register to use the database. They also have an annual database of 100 macro indicators available on floppy disks to put the household surveys in context. This database also contains rules on taxes and transfers in each country to make international comparison meaningful. The datasets are well documented, and workshops and newsletters help the researcher to use this complex database. INFORMATION: Tim Smeeding (smeeding@suvm.bitnet) Caroline de Tombeur (eplisjr@luxcep11.bitnet) B. National Archives Center for Electronic Records The National Archives has a branch devoted to the storage of electronic records from many federal entities. Of interest to economists are records from the Bureaus of the Census, Economic Analysis, and Labor Statistics, the Civil Aeronautics Board, Department of Transportation, IRS, SEC, and Social Security Administration. While the records are not available over the Internet (at least not yet), detailed information about them, including a listing of "data files" and ordering information for the data files (generally available only on 9-track tape reels or 3480 tape cartridges) are available. Currently, some 6,200 data files out of more than 14,000 available are listed in a rapidly growing list. Some of the data files are old, while some are relatively recent. Some entities have only a small selection of data, while for others, the listings are more complete. Unfortunately, the tapes are relatively expensive at either $80.75 or $90.00 (depending upon the medium) with additional tapes at $24.50. One can hope that a less expensive on-line database is not too far in the future. Since a comprehensive list of files here is impossible, the interested researcher should examine them. Much more information about this service can be found in the directory listed below. FTP: ftp.cu.nih.gov:/NARA_ELECTRONIC Directions: anonymous FTP, but press the return key for the password C. Social Security Administration (OSS-IS) The Social Security Administration Office Support System Information Server (OSS-IS) recently has placed their internal system on the Internet as an experiment. Data includes monthly benefits, current operating statistics, history of benefits paid and income data on the aged. Key files are "index" which describes the files available, and "orsindex_txt," which describes files from the SSA's Office of Research and Statistics, which are likely to be of the most interest for economists. Using these files, one can fairly quickly locate the desired data. The e-mail interface comes from Netlib, so an introduction can be obtained by sending e-mail to the address listed below with "send index" in the body of the message. For FTP, the files "index" and "orsindex_txt" are available in the "pub" directory. E-MAIL: info@ssa.gov FTP: soaf1.ssa.gov:/pub INFORMATION: info@ssa.gov D. FedWorld This site provides an entry-way from the Internet to many U.S. Government Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that one usually contacts via a phone and modem at (703) 321-8020. While there is relatively little material directly related to economics that cannot be obtained more directly, it is a useful connection to many databases. Access is only through telnet. TELNET: fedworld.gov (new address; the old one is fedworld.doc.gov) E. Public Domain Financial Data This site allows those with financial data they would like to share to place it at a common site. Thus, some caution might be advised since the data may not be "official." Details about this site can be found in the README file and a list of the extensive set of files at this site can be found in the file named "ls-lR". FTP: dg-rtp.dg.com:/pub/misc.invest F. Census A common site for U.S. and some Canadian Census information is located at this gopher. This gopher provides links to other gophers that actually contain the data. The material is not coordinated, so some searching may be in order. I was particularly impressed with the collection at the University of Missouri - they have data for all U.S. counties and cities. GOPHER (direct): riceinfo.rice.edu:/Information by Subject Area/Census GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/RiceInfo G. EDGAR This database opened in January. It covers fillings by U.S. public companies made to the SEC. It covers such things as 10K, 10Q, annual, quarterly reports and many other items. In all, the SEC receives 10 million pages a year of such data. Plans were for 3,000 companies to file electronically into EDGAR by the end of 1993, with all 15,000 companies required to file with the SEC eventually required to file into EDGAR. Previously, this database was available only through Mead Data in either inconvenient locations or at very considerable expense. In an experiment, it is now be available at no cost over the Internet. This service is provided and funded by the NSF, the NYU Stern School of Business, and the Internet Multicasting Service, run by Carl Malamud, an economist at the Board of Governors. This database only covers fillings made in 1994 for public consumption, when made electronically by the filling company. Thus, it does not cover earlier years, current paper fillings or non-public ones. Even so, the data is extensive; there appear to be more than 6,000 fillings for January alone. As the experiment progresses, there will be many changes in the design of the database (for instance, a World Wide Web interface is envisioned). Be sure to read the file general.txt in the main directory for the latest information. Currently, the files form.idx and company.idx in the main directory list the fillings. The first is ordered by the type of form, and the second by the company (both contain the same information, just in different order). Entries in both of these files list the file in the data1 directory with the relevant filling. FTP: town.hall.org/edgar EMAIL: mail@town.hall.org (send HELP in the body to receive info) INFORMATION: edgar-interest@town.hall.org (mailing list on edgar; to subscribe to it, send email to: edgar-interest-request @town.hall.org) H. Vienna Stock Market Data from the Vienna Stock market is available via telnet. I understand that it includes same day prices and volumes and retains this data for a couple of months. The language is German. TELNET: fiivs01.tu-graz.ac.at (login as "BOERSE") GOPHER (direct): olyjp.wu-wien.ac.at I. Productivity Analysis Research Network (PARN) This organization is composed of researchers doing work in the area of productivity analysis. Data is maintained at two sites: BYU University and European Concise site in the U.K. The former offers a standard ftp site, and the latter uses a nonstandard interface accessed through telnet and one through email. Both sites contain information on the organization, a membership list, guides, and a newsletter. TELNET: concise.level-7.co.uk (login as "concise", use the password "concise", and move to "networks", then "parn" by using the numbers of the left side of the panel) FTP: ipm.byu.edu:/parn EMAIL: concise@concise.level-7.co.uk send following for automatic information: start goto networks/parn/conc-guide info INFORMATION: Mona Andersen (moa@busieco.ou.dk) J. U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service This project is jointly sponsored by the Mann Library at Cornell University and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It contains more than 140 data sets, and more are due to be added. These data sets cover a very wide range of agricultural topics, and even include international and climate data. They are frequently quite detailed, and are mostly in Lotus 1-2-3 .WK1 format (thus, if you transfer them with FTP, be sure to use the binary mode). Gopher is the preferred connection method (files cannot be transferred with Telnet unless your Telnet client can call FTP). TELNET: usda.mannlib.cornell.edu (login as "usda") GOPHER (direct): usda.mannlib.cornell.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/New York/Cornell University, Albert R. Mann University Library FTP: usda.mannlib.cornell.edu:/usda INFORMATION: Oya Y. Rieger (oyr1@cornell.edu). K. World Bank Public Information Center (PIC) In a recent policy change, the World Bank is making more operational information publicly available, and the Public Information Center (PIC) is part of this process. While past data is not being released, as time marches on, more and more information will be available through the PIC. Such data covers a number of areas, including projects under development, Staff Appraisal Reports (SARs), some Country Economic and Sector Work (CESW) reports, Sectoral Policy Papers, Environmental Data Sheets, some environmental assessments, National Environmental Action Plans (EAPs), and evaluation reports from the Operations Evaluation Department. This gopher also has information on World Bank Publications (including ordering information). GOPHER: gopher.worldbank.org L. Wall Street Journal and New York Times News Service According to "Dow Jones to Offer News Over Internet by Mid-'94," Wall Street Journal, 1/27/94, p. B6, the Wall Street Journal will be available over the Internet by the middle of this year. To quote: "The service, to be called DowVision on the Internet, will include the full text of the Wall Street Journal, and same-day text of the Yew York Times News Service, the Dow Jones News Service, Dow Jones International News Service and press-release services.... Dow Jones said it will charge a flat monthly fee, still to be determined." In "Curtain's Rising on a Third Generation of On-Line Services," John Markoff, New York Times, 1/30/94, p. 10 (Business), more is reported on this service. It says that Wais, Gopher and Mosaic interfaces will be used for this experiment, which is offered in a joint venture between Dow Jones and Wais, Inc. The New York Times News Service will be offered next year. 5. WORKING PAPER ARCHIVES AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SERVICES A. NetEc This gopher site has two parts: BibEc, a bibliography of working papers in economics, and WoPEc, an electronic collection of working paper. BibEc includes some 35,000 entries from about 250 different working papers series. These series include those major of major universities and research institutions, including the Fed in Print database of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. Coverage dates from 1988, with the exception of NBER working papers (all are covered), UCSD from 1981, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London from 1983. Searches can be made by keywords. This is one of the most valuable resources for economists on the Internet. Fethy Mili <mili@ere.umontreal.ca>, a librarian at the Universite de Montreal, maintains an extensive collection of working paper series. He is to be commended for entering the data. The data is made available at the Manchester Computing Centre. Other institutions provided further contributions. NetEc welcomes the participation of all working paper producers. WoPEc contains a collection of working papers, which can be retrieved electronically. All are Unix compressed PostScript files. Finally, the FTP site has the Backus and Kohoe data from the AER, '92 (see the pub/NetEc/DatEc directory). More data could be kept here; if you have any suggestions, please email netec@uts.mcc.ac.uk. TELNET netec.mcc.ac.uk (login as "netec" and change to "Economics") GOPHER (direct): uts.mcc.ac.uk:/Economics GOPHER (indirect): Europe/United Kingdom/University of Manchester/Economics/NetEc FTP: netec.mcc.ac.uk INFORMATION: netec@uts.mcc.ac.uk B. Working Paper Archive (econ-wp) This electronic archive of working papers in economics is set up by the Economics Department of Washington University in St. Louis. It uses software developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where literally thousands of working papers in physics are stored. This archive is best accessed through gopher, although email and FTP access is possible as well. Papers are grouped in 21 subject areas with abstracts and different methods of searching for papers are available. Papers may be submitted in any format via e-mail and binary files can be submitted via FTP. Currently, there are relatively few papers in the archive, but its ease of use should encourage more entries. If you have a properly configured WWW client (such as Mosaic) or even a properly configured gopher (such as Hgopher for Windows), most of the papers can be viewed online (as can other PostScript papers). The WWW server also has entries for other PostScript papers which are available on the Net. The parent gopher, the gopher of the Economics Department of Washington University at St. Louis, contains a wealth of interesting material. It is the next to last entry on econ-wp's menu. TELNET: econwpa.wustl.edu (login as "gopher") GOPHER (direct): econwpa.wustl.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/Missouri/Washington University - St. Louis/Washington University in St. Louis Departmental Gopher Servers /Economics Department/Economics Working Paper Archive WWW: http://econwpa.wustl.edu/Welcome.html EMAIL: econ-wp@econwpa.wustl.edu Directions: in the subject of the letter, "help" will obtain introductory information C. Feminist Economists Discussion Group Archive The mailing list of this group, described below, has an archive of working papers, bibliographies and old discussions. It is reached only via email. For an index of material, send email to the listed site with "index femecon-l" in the body of the letter, while "get femecon-l guide", sent the same way, will list the services available. Finally, "help" will cause a general guide to using listserv to be sent to you. EMAIL: listserv@bucknell.edu 6. GOPHERS A. Economics Gopher at Sam Houston State University This gopher contains a variety of material that might be useful for teaching, such as summaries of the 1990 Census, the proposed U.S. budget for 1994, and the CIA World Factbook. Further, it contains an extensive of connections to data sources and in particular to all other known economics gophers. As a result, it is THE gopher one should search first. It also includes a list of economists and their email addresses. Finally, it has a very extensive collection of TeX information. GOPHER (direct): niord.shsu.edu:/Economics GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/Sam Houston State University/Economics B. Computational Economics Gopher This gopher is affiliated with the journal Computational Economics. It contains connections to other economics gophers, information on a few books and some working papers. It also contains information on submitting papers electronically to the journal. GOPHER (direct): gopher.sara.nl:/Computational Economics GOPHER (indirect): Europe/Netherlands/SARA/ Computational Economics C. ClioNet Sponsored by the Cliometric Society, this gopher contains information of interest to economic historians. It features an electronic directory of the memberships of a variety of business and economic history organizations. It also contains a collection of more than 50 course syllabi from economic history courses, abstracts from Cliometric sessions at ASSA meetings, a list of papers presented at Cliometrics Conferences (1961-1993), and a growing set of historical data series. Early in 1993, the Society plans to create an expanded server with multiple topical listservs, "real time" conferences and expanded data sets. This server will offer special concentration on issues related to the historical economic impact on global change. (Sam Williamson, who runs ClioNet, kindly provided this description.) TELNET: clionet.cas.muohio.edu (login as "gopher") GOPHER (direct): clionet.cas.muohio.edu INFORMATION: Sam Williamson (shwillia@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu) D. National Bureau of Economic Research Gopher Currently, this gopher contains several things of interest: the Penn World Trade Tables (versions 5 and 5.5), the Survey of Consumer Finance (which will fit on three floppies), trade and immigration data from Abowd and Freeman, and a list of NBER working papers and reprints (which must first be uudecoded then uncompressed; the ultimate size is some 2.5 megabytes). The later is also available at BibEc. Note that not all data is available with both the ftp and gopher methods; in particular, of the data, only the Penn World Trade Tables are available on the Gopher site. One can only hope that someday NBER working papers will be available here or at another working paper archive. TELNET: nber.harvard.edu (login as "gopher") GOPHER (direct): nber.harvard.edu FTP: nber.harvard.edu:/pub/nber E. Academe This Week This electronic version of the Chronicle of Higher Education is available via gopher. Perhaps the most useful item is the full listings of all job advertisements from the Chronicle, but it also summarizes the articles in the print version, and contains various miscellaneous items. GOPHER (direct): chronicle.merit.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/General (also directly on more than 60 university gophers) F. Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept. This gopher is closely tied to the Working Paper Archive at Washington Univ. It contains a number of links to other useful gophers, both economic and of interest to economists, such as the Federal Register, archives of mailing lists on SAS and statistics, access to the UIC Stat archives (described below) and many Internet resources. GOPHER (direct): wuecon.wustl.edu port 671 GOPHER (indirect): USA/Missouri/Washington University - St. Louis/Washington University in St. Louis Departmental Gopher Servers /Economics Department/Economics G. RiceInfo This gopher is part of a project to link together gopher materials in a number of subject areas. One area of interest to economists is a section titled "Economics and Business". While many other economic gophers list roughly the same information, this may be of interest. Note that this same gopher has substantial Census information listed in another area (and described above). GOPHER (direct): riceinfo.rice.edu:/Information by Subject Area/Economics and Business GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/RiceInfo H. University of Michigan Economics Department This site is run by Hal Varian and Jeff MacKie-Mason and it contains a variety of information, such as addresses of economists (including email ones), some bibliographies, data (particularly Dow-Jones and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture), errata to some Varian books and working papers on the economics of the Internet. GOPHER (direct): gopher.econ.lsa.umich.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/Michigan/University of Michigan Libraries/Other Gophers/University of Michigan/Economics Department WWW: http://gopher.econ.lsa.umich.edu/EconInternet.html I. Communications for a Sustainable Future This gopher contains two directories that might be of interest: Post-Keynesian Thought and Economic Forum. The former contains material of interest to researchers in that field and the later is more general, but in the general theme of this gopher. It contains a directory titled "Dollars-and-Sense", but it is currently empty. GOPHER (direct): csf.colorado.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/Colorado/Communications for a Sustainable Future J. SunSITE This site (sponsored in part by Sun Microsystems) contains current government documents that might be useful for policy analysis. Examples include information on NAFTA, the Administration's health care plan, White House Press Releases, reinventing government, and the proposed federal budget. Most of this material will be found in "Sunsite Archives" and others in "US and World Politics", which is in "Sunsite Archives". GOPHER (direct): sunsite.oit.unc.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/North Carolina/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Ogphre/SUNsite archives) TELNET: sunsite.oit.unc.edu (login as "gopher"; you may need to supply your terminal type) K. RISKNet This gopher is associated with the RISKNet mailing list, described below. They cover risk and insurance issues. This gopher has calls for papers, databases, teaching resources, and teaching material for these fields. There is also an FTP site with a more limited amount of information. GOPHER (direct): gopherhost.cc.utexas.edu port 3004 /Department Information/Finance/RISKNet L. Florida State College of Business This gopher contains a wealth of information on their programs. It is a nice example of what a college can do with a gopher. GOPHER(direct): cob.fsu.edu port 4070 GOPHER(indirect): USA/Florida/Florida State University/Other Information Systems at Florida State University/ College of Business 7. UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH LIBRARY CARD CATALOGS A. Research Libraries in General The most current list of research libraries accessible over the Internet is maintained by Billy Barron (who started it), Marie-Christine Mahe, Lou Rosenfeld and Barry Bouwsma. It lists roughly 680 such libraries. Note that many libraries can also be reached via gopher (typically under a title like "Libraries"). The following files describe how the libraries can be reached via telnet and the type of indexing software they use. Via the gopher listed below, one can directly connect to the libraries listed in the FTP files. FTP: ftp.utdallas.edu:/pub/staff/billy/libguide (there are many files of interest in this directory) GOPHER (direct): gopher.utdallas.edu:/Library On-Line Catalogs GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/University of Texas - Dallas B. Library of Congress The Library of Congress has set up a gopher that includes a wealth of information, which includes their card catalog. They also offer an extensive set of links to other resources (the economics oriented ones are generally described elsewhere here) and substantial information on the U.S. Government, including Congress. It _appears_ one can use their photocopy service long distance. GOPHER (direct): marvel.loc.gov GOPHER (indirect): USA/Washington DC/Library of Congress TELNET: marvel.loc.gov (login as "gopher") C. North Carolina State University's "Library Without Walls" This library is a forerunner of libraries of the future. It contains a "Reference Desk" which has dictionaries, directories, indices, and subject guides to literature and the Internet. It also has "Study Carrels" which are devoted to different subject areas. GOPHER (direct): dewey.lib.ncsu.edu/NCSU's "Library Without Walls" GOPHER (indirect): USA/North Carolina/North Carolina State University Library gopher/NCSU's "Library Without Walls" 8. PROGRAM LIBRARIES A. Netlib Netlib is a numerical software library with approximately 50 megabytes of code. The routines, mostly in Fortran, are generally of high quality (many were developed at U.S. national labs or by professional numerical analysts). Packages include Linpack, Eispack, and their new successor, Lapack. Netlib is available via e-mail and FTP and even on some economics gophers. For introductory material on Netlib, use the e-mail method by writing "send index" in the body of your message addressed to one of the sites listed below. You will receive an introduction to Netlib and its libraries and how to obtain routines from them. At least the netlib2 sites contain some uncompressed files. GOPHER: wuecon.wustl.edu (described above) niord.shsu.edu:/ftp Gateways to Economics Information (described above) netlib2.cs.utk.edu FTP: netlib2.cs.utk.edu (U.S.) netlib.att.com:/netlib (U.S.) unix.hensa.ac.uk:/pub/netlib (Europe) draci.cs.uow.edu.au:/netlib (Pacific) E-MAIL: netlib@ornl.gov (U.S.) netlib@research.att.com (U.S.) netlib@unix.hensa.ac.uk (Europe) netlib@nac.no (Europe) netlib@draci.cs.uow.edu.au (Pacific) B. Statlib Statlib is a system similar to Netlib (in fact, it uses roughly the same software) for statistical software. Major holding include algorithms from Applied Statistics, numerous classic datasets (although few are economic), software for Minitab and S, and a variety of other software under a heading labeled "general." For the email interface, send the phrase "send index" in the body of your message. E-MAIL: statlib@lib.stat.cmu.edu GOPHER (direct): lib.stat.cmu.edu GOPHER (indirect): USA/Pennsylvania/Statlib (also listed directly on some gophers) FTP: lib.stat.cmu.edu C. University of Illinois at Chicago Statistical Library (UICSTAT) This statistics library contains a variety of software (much of it in SAS), but it lacks an up to date index, making searching it a bit difficult. However, an index can be reached at the Washington Univ. Economics Gopher (described above) under the heading "UIC Stat Archive" and files can be transferred from there as well. FTP: uicvm.cc.uic.edu:/uicvm Directions: must do a "cd" to uicmv before a directory listing is shown GOPHER: via Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept. (described above) INFORMATION: Barry Grau (u42054@uicvm.cc.uic.edu) 9. EDUCATIONAL SERVICES A. Iowa Electronic Markets This service is run by the Accounting and Economics Departments of the University of Iowa. It currently consists of three electronic exchanges: the Iowa Earnings Market (which trades contracts on the EPS of five corporations), the Iowa Economic Indicators Market (which trades contracts on the CPI and the US$/Mexican peso exchange rate). In the past, these departments ran the well known 1992 Iowa Political Stock Market, which traded contracts based on the outcome of the 1992 Presidential Election. The liquidation value of all contracts is determined by the value of the underlying fundamental on a set date. This excellent teaching tool is open only to university and college staff, faculty and students. While the purpose is education and research, trades require actual money (from $5 to $500 may be invested). The developers feel that by using real money for trades, there is an increased motivation to learn about the underlying fundamentals. There are no commissions or fees and trading is continuous. FTP: umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu:/pub/iem/trman.txt (Trader's Manual) " " /q&a.txt (Short Introduction) EMAIL: iem@scout-po.biz.uiowa.edu Directions: mail addressed here will send the Trader's Manual to you. 10.USENET NEWSGROUPS Usenet is a decentralized discussion system running on tens of thousands of cooperating computers around the world (much of the traffic runs over the Internet). It covers almost 2,000 subjects in areas called newsgroups. The estimated number of readers ranges in the low millions and traffic each day is approaching 50 megabytes. Some mailing lists "mirror" Usenet newsgroups and vice-versa. In many ways, Usenet has it own culture and the new user is wise to read carefully before posting messages. The newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions are for those new to Usenet. Since it runs on a variety of systems, consult your local site for information on how to access it. Newsgroup Topic comp.soft-sys.spss SPSS comp.soft-sys.shazam Shazam comp.soft-sys.sas SAS comp.infosystems.announce Internet Information System Announcements sci.stat.edu Statistics and Education sci.stat.math Statistics and Math sci.stat.consult Statistics and Consulting sci.math.stat Statistics Discussion sci.op-research Operations Research sci.econ.research Research in Economics (Moderated) All past discussions are indexed and organized into topic areas by the moderator, Forrest Smith. They are archived at (FTP) sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/academic/economics/ sci.econ.research sci.econ Discussions in Economics (often dominated by current political economy questions; a good place for economic education if you're patient) 11.MAILING LISTS A. Introduction Mailing lists work as follows. Software on a computer run by the organizer (or moderator) of the list sends mail to all members of the list when it receives mail. For obvious reasons, the term mail exploder is sometimes used for such software. On some lists, the moderator will approve mail to be sent to all list members. Thus, to send mail to all members, you need only write to one address: the list address. When using a mailing list, please follow "netiquette:" - Use a meaningful subject line. A subject of "help", particularly when received by those on more than one list, is not likely to elicit much of a response. - If you're responding to a previous post, quote accordingly, but judiciously. This helps put your comments in context, yet avoids messages that are too long. - Enclose a short note (or "signature") at the bottom with at least your email address. Some mailing systems mangle the information in the header with your address. - If you have a response, consider responding directly via email if you think no one on the list will be interested. - Watch your temper. Email sometimes makes tempers flare. If you think you should wait or tone down your note, you most likely should. - Don't type in all capital letters. While not part of netiquette, the value of mailing lists should be approached like other many other sources of information, such as a newspaper or a journal. Much of the material may not be of interest, but occasionally something very useful may cross your path. ################################################################### # Note that in ALL cases, you subscribe and unsubscribe from a # # list NOT by sending e-mail to the list itself (which means it # # goes to ALL the members of the list), but to some special # # address that deals with subscriptions. Sending mail to the # # list itself marks you as a novice who hasn't taken time to # # carefully read directions. It also irritates list members # # (numbering into the hundreds) who receive useless mail. One # # hint: when subscribing to a list, you'll receive information # # on how to unsubscribe. Keep it and use it. # ################################################################### The following is a list of e-mail discussion groups. I have organized the following mailing lists around the type of software (listserv, majordomo, mailserv, mailbase Internet-style and other) used to run them so that directions can be put in one place. In general, I know little about these lists other than the fact that they exist (in fact, this list is basically an edited version of the e-mail I received in acknowledgment when I subscribed to the lists). Traffic varies; in fact, on some, it is very close to zero and on others, it varies substantially. Where I do know something more, I've added it beneath the name of the list and its address. B. Single Topic Mailing Lists LISTSERV To subscribe to a list run by listserv, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@wherever, _NOT_ to the list itself. If you send mail to the list itself, it will be sent in turn to all members of the list. This, obviously, should be reserved for messages you want all members of the list to read and potentially respond to. For example, to subscribe to the list CARECON, you'd send e-mail to LISTSERV@YORKVM1.BITNET (or LISTSERV@VM1.YORKU.CA). In the body of your e-mail message, you should write the one line message: subscribe CARECON your name Note that your name is typically your first and last name. To cancel a subscription, use signoff list where list is the name of the list. Again, e-mail should be sent to listserv at the site that houses the list. Finally, help on these and other commands can be obtained by sending a one line message with "help" in it. Messages to the list itself should be sent to CARECON@YORKVM1.BITNET, for example. Any such message will be sent to all members of the list. List of the Society of Computational Economics CSEMLIST@HASARA11.BITNET Has a number of announcements of meetings and some calls for papers. List of the Faculty of Economics, University of Amsterdam, NL. CORRYFEE@HASARA11.BITNET Caribbean Economy CARECON@YORKVM1.BITNET (or @VM1.YORKU.CA) Research in Economic Education ECONED-L@UTDALLAS.BITNET (or @VM.UTDALLAS.EDU) A discussion of teaching and research in economic history ECONHIST@MIAMIU.BITNET (or @MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU) Discussao sobre economia brasileira ECONOM-L@BRUFSC.BITNET The Electronic Journal of Finance FINANCE@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (or @VM.TEMPLE.EDU) Economic Nonlinear Dynamics List NONLIN-L@NIHLIST.BITNET (or @LIST.NIH.GOV) Workshop on Information Systems Economics WISE@UICVM.BITNET (or @UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU) Eastern Europe Business Network E-EUROPE@PUCC.BITNET (or @PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU) Post-Keynesian Thought pkt@csf.colorado.edu. International Trade trade@csf.colorado.edu. Community and Rural Economic Development Interests RURALDEV@KSUVM.BITNET (or @KSUVM.KSU.EDU) Economic Problems in Less Developed Countries ECONOMY@UOTTAWA.BITNET (or ECONOMY@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA) Political Economy Pol-Econ@SHSU.BITNET (or @SHSU.edu) Postings from Usenet's moderated newsgroup sci.econ.research are "gatewayed" to this group, and postings from Pol-Econ are sent to the sci.econ.research moderator for possible inclusion in that group. Discussions range over all of economics. Since the traffic is fairly heavy, you can choose to have all messages sent in one message once a day in a digest. Rather than subscribing to Pol-Econ, subscribe to Pol-Econ-Digest. If you'd like to switch from Pol-Econ to Pol-Econ-Digest, first use the command to unsubscribe from Pol-Econ: signoff Pol-Econ Labor Economics LABOR@SHSU.BITNET (or @SHSU.edu) Gophers devoted on Economics Egopher@SHSU.BITNET (or@SHSU.edu) Business Libraries Discussion List BUSLIB-L@IDBSU.BITNET Traffic is said to be heavy. Regional Science Information Exchange REGSC-L@WVNVM.BITNET Feminist Economics Discussion List femecon-l@bucknell.edu. SAS Discussion SAS-L@UGA.BITNET (or @UGA.CC.UGA.EDU) A high volume list that would appear to be quite useful to SAS users. SAS Public Access Consortium (deals with Census data) SASPAC-L@UMSLVMA.BITNET (or @UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU) PEN-L (Progressive Economists Network) pen-l@bobby.ecst.csuchico.edu MEMSNET (Mineral Economics and Mgmt Society) LISTSERV@UABDPO.BITNET (or @UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU) Net-Happenings net-happenings@is.internic.net While not related to economics, this list is a good description to what is happening on the Internet. I came across some items on this list here. MAJORDOMO Majordomo is another program that organizes mailing lists. Commands for subscribing and unsubscribing are similar to those used with a listserv except that the name is not given at the end of the subscription line. Further, rather than sending e-mail to listserv at the site that houses the list, it should be sent to majordomo@csn.org. Local Economic Development econ-dev@csn.org A rather philosophical list with fairly heavy traffic. Texts prepared by the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses ibase-texts-l@ibase.br RISKNet - Discussion of Risk and Insurance issues. RISKnet@bongo.cc.utexas.edu MAILSERV When using a mailserv, requests for a subscription or canceling a subscription should be sent to mailserv@wherever. To subscribe, write subscribe list in the body of your note where list is the name of the list you wish to subscribe to. To cancel a subscription, use unsubscribe list International Political Economy ipe@csf.colorado.edu MAILBASE When using a mailbase, send your e-mail to mailbase@wherever and use join list your name in the body of the text to join a list, and use leave list to cancel a subscription. CTI Centre for Computing in Economics list for academic economists cti-econ@mailbase.ac.uk Economic History E-mail Conference history-econ@mailbase.ac.uk This list publishes the interesting Economic History Newsletter that covers a variety of topics. Experimental Economics economics-experimental@mailbase.ac.uk Discussion on the transition in Eastern Europe & former Soviet Union. east-west-research@mailbase.ac.uk Discussion of issues related to law and economics. law-economics@mailbase.ac.uk Discussion on the economics and management of education. educ-econ@mailbase.ac.uk Discussion for those who use quantitative techniques in health econ. health-econometrics@mailbase.ac.uk INTERNET STYLE With Internet style lists, one sends requests to sign up and leave a list to the list maintainer. Simply add the suffix "-request" to the list name and e-mail it. Teaching of Economics (not research in economic education) tch-econ@vax1.elon.edu Communications Privatization com-priv@psi.com This list discusses issues concerning the privatization of the Internet. This is an area in which economists might have a substantial impact. OTHER This category includes all other possible types of mailing lists. Directions are listed individually. Land and Resource Economics Electronic Conference (res-econ) res-econ@unixg.ubc.ca To subscribe, mail to: res-econ-request@unixg.ubc.ca with the subject as subscribe to res-econ and in the body of your letter, type your name. C. Financial Economists Network (FEN) Currently, this is a group of 25 mailing lists ("channels") with more than 1800 subscribers from academia, government and industry. All lists are devoted to some form financial economics. One first registers with either Wayne Marr of Clemson University (marrm@ clemson.clemson.edu) or John Trimble of Washington State University (trimble@vancouver.wsu.edu). Along with Michael Jensen, they founded FEN. Besides a main list of AFA-FIN, lists are: AFA-ACCT (Accounting and Finance) AFA-INT (International Finance) AFA-AGE (Gerontology Finance) AFA-INV (Investments) AFA-AGRI (Agricultural Finance) AFA-LE (Law & Econ.) AFA-BANK (Banking) AFA-MATH (Mathematical Finance) AFA-CORP (Corporate Finance) AFA-PUB (Public Finance) AFA-DER (Derivatives) AFA-REAL (Real Estate) AFA-ECMT (Econometrics and Finance) AFA-S-IV (Small Investor) AFA-EDU (Education Finance) AFA-SBUS (Small Business Finance) AFA-HEAL (Health Finance) AFA-WA-R (Real Estate in WA state) AFA-INS (Insurance) AFA-MKTM (Market Microstructure) AFA-PERS (Personal Finance) AFA-VCAP (Venture Capital) AFA-INST (Teaching/Instruction) AFA-EMKT (Emerging Markets) AFA-SOFT (Financial Software) 12.DATA RELATED TO THE ECONOMICS PROFESSION A. Graduate Programs Forrest Smith, the moderator of the Usenet newsgroup sci.econ.research, has compiled information on some graduate programs in economics. The archive site for this group is mentioned below, and this information can be found in the "FAQ" directory with the names "grad.programs.descriptive" and "grad.progs.contents". FTP:sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/academic/economics/sci.econ.research 13. WORD PROCESSING A. TeX References Since I am not knowledgeable about TeX, let me cite the two references given in the TeX FAQ: The TeXbook, Donald Knuth, Addison Wesley, 1984, ISBN 0-201-13447-0, paperback 0-201-13448-9 LaTeX, a Document Preparation System, Leslie Lamport, Addison Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-15790-X B. TeX Macros for Economics and TeX Sources Since I am not a TeX user, let me defer to George Greenwade <bed_gdg@SHSU.edu>, who is. In fact, he is an expert. This section was written by George and I simply copied it from his posting to the Usenet newsgroup sci.econ.research as archived by Forrest Smith. The TeX macros written by Professor Varian, known as "VerTeX" (for Visualize Economic Reports in TeX; release 1.0 of August, 1987) are available for ftp retrieval from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) hosts: hostname directory -------------------------------------------------------------- ftp.SHSU.edu /tex-archive/macros/plain/contrib/vertex/ ftp.TeX.ac.UK /tex-archive/macros/plain/contrib/vertex/ ftp.Uni-Stuttgart.DE /tex-archive/macros/plain/contrib/vertex/ The first two sites also support Gopher access. SHSU's CTAN is also linked into Niord's Gopher in its Economics area, as well as the economics or TeX areas on a number of other gophers worldwide. Finally, the command: SENDME VERTEX in the body of a mail message to FILESERV@SHSU.edu will retrieve the set of 19 files via e-mail. I have to stress that these are NOT LaTeX styles; they are TeX macros. VerTeX's syntax differs somewhat from the more standard LaTeX-type commands; however, the syntax used in VerTeX is consistent throughout VerTeX (and, as an occasional user, I fell comfortable in saying they are relatively easy to follow, understand, and use). The file set is pretty well documented and demonstrated. Varian has very roughly hinted that he might have an interest at some later date in rewriting these to use LaTeX and BibTeX (probably after the release of LaTeX3 -- since I am quite involved in that project, I feel safe in telling you not to hold your breath on LaTeX3; I'll be surprised if it's out before 1996). The present Visualize Economic Reports in TeX styles include: jpe.sty --- Journal of Polemical Economy jep.sty --- Journal of Economic Perspectives jet.sty --- Journal of Economic Theorems aer.sty --- Armenian Economic Review ecnmet.sty --- Economagica restud.sty --- Review for Economic Students qje.sty --- Quartered Journal of Economics I'll assume that you can figure out which of these look like what "real" journals. When you use one of these styles, VerTeX will automatically adjust the style of the document and the style of the references to be more-or-less consistent with the journal style. Some fine tuning may be needed, but the output generally looks pretty good. As the US coordinator of the CTAN (a collection now in excess of a gigabyte), if you have any TeX-related files which you would like to have included, please contact me. 14. PROGRAMS FOR ECONOMISTS ON THE INTERNET A. BCI Data Manager For this section, let me quote from a post by the author (Gary F. Langer), with just a bit of editing: BCI Data Manager is a Windows 3.1 program that lets you manage the economic time series contained in the U.S. Commerce Department's Business Cycle Indicators (BCI) and Current Business Statistics (BSDC) database files. Together, these data files, updated weekly and monthly, contain current and historic data on over 2000 data series. BCI files contain all of the time series included in the "yellow pages" of the Survey of Current Business, going back to 1945, and always contain the very latest revisions. Current Business Statistics files contain all the economic time series found in the "blue pages" of the Survey of Current Business, going back four years. These files are available on the Commerce Department's Economics Bulletin Board (EBB) and on a subscription basis. You can access the EBB via telnet through ebb.stat-usa.gov, or via modem at (202)482-3870. BCI and BSDC files can also be obtained through ftp from the U. of Michigan: una.hh.lib.umich.edu:/bin. The main purpose of BCI Data Manager is to extract data from these data files and save it in a useful format. You can choose to save extracted data as an ASCII file (CSV format), as a spreadsheet file (WK1 format), or to the Windows clipboard. (You can also interactively view the data on-line if you like). Range names are saved in the WK1 files to facilitate importing the data into word- processing documents and external databases. Graphs of each series extracted can also be saved in the WK1 file containing the data, at the option of the user. The program also enables you to keep historic database files up-to-date with an automated update facility. The Commerce Department issues weekly and monthly updates of the last two and four years of data for all of its BCI data series, but unless this data can be integrated into the historic database files that go back to 1945, it is of limited usefulness. By essentially clicking on files to be updated and clicking on the files containing the updated data, the program will automatically add the updated and revised data to existing historic data files. Another feature of the program is its ability to display graphs of all of the series contained in the database with a single click of the mouse. With a single tap of the up or down arrow keys you can scroll through graphs of all of the series on your computer as if you were turning through the pages of a book. With another mouse click you can switch the display from that of quarterly or monthly data to that of annual data. I've found that this feature is excellent for in-class and seminar slide (or screen) show presentations. If you use the program and like it, send me e-mail and I will send you information about later versions of it (I tinker with it endlessly). (Also send e-mail if you would like me to send you the program on a floppy diskette via surface mail.) FTP: netec.mcc.ac.uk:/pub/NetEc/SoftEc/BCI_Manager (the program can be obtained from either the zipped (using PKZIP) or unzipped directories (be sure to get all files)) INFORMATION: Gary F. Langer (gary.langer@syslink.mcs.com) 15. USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET A. Books I have taken a fairly careful look at the 10 different books I've seen on the Internet at national bookstores. Let me recommend: Ed Krol. The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog. O'Reilly and Associates, Sebastopol, California. 1992. ISBN 1-56592-025-2. Paul Gilster. The Internet Navigator. John Wiley and Sons, New York. 1993. ISBN 0-471-59782-1. Harley Hahn and Rick Stout. The Internet Complete Reference. Osborne McGraw-Hill, New York. 1994. ISBN 0-07-881980-6. Daniel P. Dern. The Internet Guide for New Users. McGraw Hill, New York. 1994. ISBN 0-07-016511-4. B. On-Line Guide For a comprehensive on-line guide, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet," written by Adam Gaffin, is excellent. While not as detailed as the above books, it is a very useful guide to the Internet. Plus, it is free. The listing below identifies an ASCII (or text) version of the second edition; many other formats are available in the Big_Dummy_other_versions directory, (but not yet of the second edition). FTP: ftp.eff.org:/pub/Net_info/bigdummy.txt C. Software Gopher client software Gopher is a very popular tool on the Internet and is much more efficient than accessing gopher sites with telnet. Further, file transfer is much easier with client software. Packages for many different hosts can be found here. FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher. uuencode/uudecode This pair of programs are very useful when used in conjunction with email. Uuencode takes a binary file (such as a word processing file or a program) and converts it to text so that it can be emailed. Uudecode than converts it back to binary. Using this pair of programs, researchers can collaborate by emailing binary data or word processing files. If one host is an IBM mainframe, be sure to use the -x option. FTP: ftp.shsu.edu:/tex-archives/archive-tools/uue GOPHER: Sam Houston State Economics (described above): /Network Archive Tools/uue gzip: This new program can uncompress many files (note that this is typically denoted by a .Z suffix) found on the Internet. More information on this topic can be found below in the document by David Lemson. FTP: ftp.shsu.edu:/tex-archive/tools/info-zip GOPHER: Sam Houston State Economics (described above): /Network Archive Tools/gzip D. Resources Scott Yanoff's "Internet Services List" Scott Yanoff produces a list of interesting resources on the Internet. While few of them are economics (and those that are covered above) many are quite interesting and useful. One I find particularly interesting is the University of Illinois weather gopher -- you can find weather forecasts for any part of the country. Another interesting resource is books.com, a bookstore on the Internet. For those that live in rather small towns like me, this is a very valuable service. Yanoff's list is well worth looking at for those new to the Internet. FTP: csd4.csd.uwm.edu:/pub/inet.services.txt John December's "Information Sources: the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication" This document has a broader concept than Yanoff's; rather than listing just resources, December lists a number of documents as well, such as electronic guides to the Internet, and software sites. The breadth is quite remarkable. Like Yanoff's list, those new to the Internet will find it quite useful. FTP: ftp.rpi.edu:/pub/communications/internet-cmc.txt File Compression, Archiving, and Text<->Binary Formats: This document, by David Lemson (lemson@uiuc.edu) details the numerous methods of file compression used on the Internet and elsewhere. FTP: ftp.cso.uiuc.edu:/doc/pcnet/compression. 16. NON-INTERNET RESOURCES A. Introduction While this document is primarily about resources on the Internet of interest to economists, there are several resources not on the Internet that might be of interest. I hasten to add that I have not tried any of these and am only reporting what I have read elsewhere. B. Federal Reserve Bank Bulletin Boards Dallas (214) 220-5169 Minneapolis (612) 340-2489 St. Louis (314) 621-1824 I understand that the St. Louis Fed has a wealth of historical data (including money data, obviously), while the Minneapolis Fed has FOMC minutes, and speeches and testimony of Fed officials. C. Electronic JEL Index I understand that though CompuServe's Knowledge Index and IQuest (they offer a number of sometimes overlapping databases), the Economic Literature Index is available after hours. It is available during working hours through Dialog, but it is quite expensive. One hopes that someday membership in the AEA will have its privileges and members won't have to pay for access to this database. D. On-Line Refereed Economics Journal I understand that a bulletin board run by Steven W. Dickey of Eastern Kentucky University "publishes" refereed articles. He can be contacted at (606) 622-4987, and the bulletin board is at (601) 624-3934, UARTS 2400, 8-N-1. End of Document